LITTLE RIVER, S.C. – Junior shortstop Sara Cote finished 3-for-3 and drove in three runs, getting the Owls off to a strong start before they wound up holding off Albertus Magnus College 4-3 in the second game of two Thursday afternoon at the North Myrtle Beach Sports Complex.  KSC dropped the day's opener to Mount Aloysius College 4-1, seeing their season-opening six-game winning streak snapped.

Records

• Keene State:  7-1
• Mount Aloysius:  4-2
• Albertus Magnus:  4-4

How It Happened – Mount Aloysius
Whitney Cole had a pair of hits and drove in two runs as the Mounties built a 3-0 lead in the top of the third and rode the pitching of Traci Hauser and Emily Cochran to the victory.  KSC managed just three hits, two from Cote in three at bats including a triple, but was otherwise shut down.  Faith Barbieri had the other hit, a single to lead off the fourth – the only inning the Owls scored – and stole a base, but the Owls struck out eight times at the plate without a walk.

KSC did not get off to the start they were hoping for, as Ella Pearson reached on an error to start the game and eventually scored an unearned run after a second Owl miscue in the frame when they threw the ball away on Cole's infield single.  Mount Aloysius stranded a pair on base in the first, but Keene State saw their first nine hitters sent down consecutively by Hauser, who fanned the side in the third after the Mounties made it a 3-0 edge following Cole's two-run single up the middle.

The Owls broke through in the fourth when Barbieri laced one back up the middle off Hauser that resulted in a base hit to start, stole second, and moved to third on a Cote single.  Both runners moved up, with Barbieri scoring, on a wild pitch that sliced KSC's deficit to two, but Hauser settled down to get out of the inning by retiring the next two.  Keene State never had another baserunner in the game, seeing the final 11 sent down in order by Hauser and Cochran.

Hauser (1-1) allowed three hits and just the one run in five innings, striking out six.  Cochran got a two inning save, her first, with a pair of perfect frames with two strikeouts.

Lilah Demmy (3-1) got the ball for Keene State and allowed four runs on seven hits with one walk and four strikeouts.

Pearson went 2-for-4 with a triple and scored three times out of the top spot in Mount Aloysius' lineup.

How It Happened – Albertus Magnus
Cote, with her fourth consecutive multi-hit game and sixth in eight contests this season, helped KSC play from ahead in the day's second game and the Owls wound up staving off a late comeback bid from the Falcons in a narrow 4-3 win.  The steady and consistent KSC shortstop roped a single down the left field line in the bottom of the first to put the Owls on the board, and then added on two more with a hard-hit double to that same area of the field in the third to make it a 3-0 game.  CC Chadwick followed with a two-base hit of her own to tack on a fourth run as KSC was hitting around Erin Dighello, but that run ended up being important in the end, as Albertus Magnus made a game of it with a three-run sixth in which they doubled four times with three of them plating a run.  Skylar Arent made it 4-2 with one out in that frame to bring the tying run to the plate.  Fatima Rosales' double into the right center gap with two down plated Arent and suddenly put the tying run in scoring position, but Carissa Miller got Angelina Ramada to ground to second to keep the Owls in front.

Miller had mostly been cruising along until the sixth, allowing just one hit in her first three innings of work as she kept the four-run lead intact.  Now up 4-3, the Owls turned to Lilah Demmy in the seventh to close out their seventh win while giving the first year pitcher her first career save.  Jess Stettinger was hit by a pitch with one out to put the tying run on base, but a fly ball to center and ground ball locked up KSC's second one-run victory in the last four games.

Beyond Cote and Chadwick, Molly Murray went 1-for-2 at the plate for the Owls, who had five hits in the game after finishing with three in the first game of the twinbill.

Four of Albertus Magnus' six hits as a team were doubles in the sixth inning.  In fact, six of the combined 11 hits from the teams went for two bases.

Dighello (2-2) took the loss for the Falcons, allowing four runs (one earned) and five hits in six innings.  She walked one and struck out two.

Miller (4-0) got the win in relief for the Owls, surrendering three runs and five hits in four innings while striking out two.  Bella Seaborn-Coates got the start and pitched two scoreless frames, allowing one hit.  She walked two and fanned one.

Around the Horn

• Cote and Coates each have 11 runs batted in on the season, combining for 22 of KSC's 48 total.  Cote is a team-best 13-for-23 at the plate.
• The Owls had never played either team before, the start of four consecutive games against first-time opponents.

Up Next

• Keene State closes out the South Carolina portion of their schedule with their fifth doubleheader in five days tomorrow (March 18) at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.  The Owls first take on Lycoming College (2-4) before a matchup with Division II Mansfield University (Pa.) (3-5).
• Mount Aloysius closes their Spring Break trip against the LEC's University of Massachusetts-Boston and SUNY Morrisville tomorrow morning, while Albertus Magnus gets Worcester State University and Westminster College (Pa.) at the same time.