WELLESLEY, Mass. – The second-seeded Lesley University softball team advances to the double-elimination round of the New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) Championship with a 7-0 shut-out over seventh seed Mitchell College, Tuesday afternoon.
First year right-hander Sarah Bushman (Aurora, Colo.) earned her 11th victory of the season, improving to 11-6 on the season after tossing seven innings of two-hit ball. Striking out seven Mariners, Bushman went on a stretch run where she retired 12 straight batters before giving up a two-out triple to second baseman Samantha DelConte (Enfield, Conn) in the sixth.
The Lynx wasted little time jumping on Mariner sophomore right-hander Taylor Duchesneau (Killingly, Conn.) for a run in the bottom of the first. Senior right-fielder Mekenzi Golden (Laguna Niguel, Calif.) opened the game with a lead-off single and extended her hitting streak to 15 games. She advanced into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt before coming into score two batters later on fielder's choice.
It proved to be more than enough for Bushman but the Lynx were far from done offensively. After extending their lead to 3-0 scoring twice in the third, Golden came up with runners scoring position in the bottom of the fourth. The southern California native drove a Duchesneau offering high over the leftfield fence, when it came down the Lynx had a 6-0 lead. It was her sixth homerun of the season.
Lesley grabbed another run an inning later, in the top of the fifth. First year backstop Ally Murphy (Raynham, Mass.) began the fifth roping a double into right-centerfielder. Two batters later, junior second baseman Courtney Goggin (Chesire, Conn.) came through in the clutch driving a double down the rightfield lien to plate Murphy.
Duchesneau took the loss after allowing seven runs – only four earned – on 12 hits with two strikeouts to fall to 7-15 on the season.
The Mariner's season comes to a close as they end the 2017 season with a 13-18 record. The Lynx improve to 19-16 and will host the winner of the third-seed Regis College and sixth-seed Elms College game on Thursday May 4th.