CLERMONT, Fla. – Liv Whittier lofted the first pitch she saw in the bottom of the eighth inning plenty deep enough to left field to plate Kalle Halvorsen from third as the Keene State College softball team walked off Wesleyan University (Conn.) 4-3 to finish off a 2-0 Tuesday at Hancock Park as part of The Spring Games.  The Owls hammered Keuka College 12-0 in a run-rule shortened five inning contest earlier in the day.

KSC (3-2) won for the third time in their last four games in Florida, with the win over the Cardinals (10-2) sparked by a combined 4-for-8 effort from Elyse Picard and Halvorsen – the top two hitters in the lineup – who also drove in a pair and scored three times.

The Owls erased two one-run deficits in the victory that vaulted them over .500, taking a 2-1 advantage in the bottom of the third on clutch two-out RBI singles by Halvorsen (to center) and Abigail Weiterman (to left).  Wesleyan reclaimed the lead in the fifth after Molly Lennon walked with one out in the fifth and was brought home two batters later on a two-run blast to left by Isabella Secaira-Cotto.

Down 3-2, KSC hit right back, generating an immediate threat in the bottom half of the inning after Lilah Demmy singled to center and Picard followed with a base hit.  Pinch-runner Emma Chenette was thrown out at third on a successful outfield relay to cut down the tying run, but Picard moved to second on the throw and then subsequently stole third while Halvorsen was at the plate with one out.  It proved to be a critical play, as Halvorsen then put down a squeeze attempt that turned into a game-tying bunt single that made it 3-3.

From there, Carissa Miller (1-0) held down the fort with three scoreless relief innings in her first appearance of the season, allowing just two hits.  She induced four ground ball outs and added a strikeout, needing only 33 pitches to get nine outs against a potent lineup that had scored 77 runs in their opening 10 games and had five run-rule victories and four double-digit run outputs.  Wesleyan entered the day with an unblemished 10-0 mark in Florida, including a 10-0 five-inning win over Smith College and a 6-1 victory over Babson College on Monday.  Endicott College, who KSC fell to on Monday, gave the Cardinals their first loss with a 3-1 decision earlier in the afternoon – and it was the Owls who gave them their second defeat.

Miller worked around a pair of miscues in the seventh to strand two and then worked around the automatic runner placed on second in the eighth, getting Rebecca Cassel-Siskind to pop up a sacrifice bunt attempt to prevent the go-ahead run from moving 90 feet away.  Two batters later, Ella DeCrescenzo beat out an infield single to put runners at the corners, but Bella Tassone skied to center to end the inning.

The game did not last long in the bottom half – two pitches, in fact, as after Halvorsen was placed on second Weiterman executed a sacrifice bunt to move the winning run 90 feet away.  Whittier than got a solid piece of an elevated pitch and drove it to left for a game-winning sacrifice fly that was plenty deep enough as KSC won the first meeting between the two programs in 10 years and also took a 3-2 lead in the series (with every game being played in Florida).

"What a game," said Owls head coach Haley Chandler.  "Our team played what Keene State softball can and should be.  I'm so proud of how we played.  We held our own, played our game, and were unflappable (with runners on/after allowing the go-ahead home run).  They stayed cool-headed, slowed the game down when they had to, and stayed locked in.  Our whole bench and field players were the whole game and it showed."

Demmy got the start in the circle, going the first five innings and allowing three runs (two earned) on three hits with three walks and three strikeouts.

Secaira-Cotto also went five for Wesleyan, giving up seven hits and three runs (one earned) with one strikeout.  Kelly Baker (0-1) took the loss in relief.

Both pitching staffs kept the ball on the ground all day – with nearly half the outs (23 of 47) coming on the ground.  But when the Owls needed situational hitting, they got it to move over .500 for the first time in 2025.

KSC had no trouble dispatching Keuka (0-4) – a New York-based school in the Empire 8 Conference – earlier in the day, taking the lead in the top of the first and then running away with a seven-run third inning that included a two-run triple to deep right by Hayley Townsend that pushed the Owls' lead to five.  Two batters later, Picard launched her first home run of the season to dead center field to make it 8-0 as the Owls battered Wolves starter Abbie DeRock (0-2) to the tune of nine hits and eight runs in 2.2 innings.  Only one of the runs allowed was earned, but KSC at one point recorded five consecutive hits in the third.  They finished with 15 overall, outhitting Keuka 15-3.

Megan Strzegowski (2-0) again got plenty of run support and earned the win in the run-rule shortened affair, tossing three scoreless innings and allowing just two hits.  She walked four and whiffed one.

"Those kind of games can be traps," said Chandler.  "They can be easy to drop because you are too relaxed after you score a few.  But we had lots of chances and they played at their own level instead of at Keuka's level and that is what we talked about after we went up."

KSC already has a pair of wins by at least eight runs, matching their entirety from a season ago.

The Owls had five multi-hit efforts against Keuka, with Picard and Weiterman combining to drive in five runs.  Picard is 7-for-16 (.489 AVG) over the first five games of the season and is reaching at a .452 clip.

Thanks to the postponement of the game against Nazareth University this past Sunday, Keene State now has a make-up game scheduled for tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday, March 19) against Juniata College (4-9) at 4:15 p.m.