Rae Ball and Sarah Minice combined on a five-hitter as the Fairfield University softball team posted a 4-1 win over Marist College, gaining a split in the doubleheader. The Red Foxes edged the Stags in the opener by a 1-0 count. Despite the split, Fairfield won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) regular season title and the top seed in the 2011 MAAC tournament. The tournament will be played in Poughkeepsie beginning on Thursday.

Ball earned the start in the nightcap and four-plus innings before yielding to Minice in the bottom of the fifth inning. By that time, Fairfield has built a 2-0 lead, scoring both runs in the top of the second inning. Kristina Lingo started the rally with a base hit and went to second when Alli Wigand's sacrifice bunt was mishandled, putting runners on first and second.

Ball helped her own cause when she laid down a sacrifice bunt, moving the runners up a base. Tiffany Lawson and Laura Carta each followed with an RBI single to push the Stags in front by a 2-0 count. Marist cut into the lead with a run in the fifth inning, using a walk, a stolen base, and a double to plate the team's only run. Minice entered the game at that point and finished off the Red Foxes over the next three innings. She surrendered just two hits the rest of the way with a walk.

While Minice was shutting down the home team, the Stags were able to tack on a pair of runs with a single run in the sixth and the seventh innings. In the top of the sixth inning, Lauren Liseth led off with a double and came home when Lingo drove a single to the outfield. The Stags made it 4-1 when Ball lifted an RBI single that sent home Mikayle Shumate, who started the rally with a base hit.

In the opener, Minice went the distance, but still came up short despite throwing a solid game. The pitcher allowed just two hits and one earned run, but that was all the Red Foxes would need. The home team scored the game's only run in the fifth inning. After a runner reached first following a wild pitch on a strikeout, the Red Foxes would eventually gain the lead with an RBI single later in the inning.

The Stags managed five hits in the game, with Wigand recording two of those five base hits.

Posted On: 05-08-2011 11:05 AM

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