MANSFIELD, Conn. – Senior first baseman Sam Rossetti (Shelton) was 5-for-6 and drove in three runs and eight players collected at least two hits in Eastern Connecticut State University's 13-2, 12-4 Little East Conference softball doubleheader sweep of the University of Massachusetts Boston Saturday at the Eastern Softball Field. Both games were stopped in the fifth inning.
A first-team All-New England Region selection as a junior, Rossetti raised her batting average to a team-leading .565 in pacing Eastern (13-3, 4-0 LEC) to 28 hits against UMass Boston (1-9, 0-2 LEC), seven of them for extra bases.
Rossetti was 3-for-3 with two RBI and two runs scored in the team's 12-hit first game in support of senior righty Erin Miller (Waterford). Miller, last year's LEC Pitcher-of-the-Year, shut out the Beacons over the final four innings after the visitors took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first innings senior cleanup hitter Samantha Hemstock's first home run of the year. Miller fanned three without a walk, pitching a six-hitter in her third complete game of the year.
Trailing 3-2 in the second game, Eastern sent 12 batters to the plate in the fourth inning, scoring seven runs on eight hits. Junior third baseman Samantha Rentz (Griswold) and sophomore Kristyn Ryan (Barkhamsted) each blasted three-run home runs in the inning. Ryan's was the first of her career, coming as a pinch hitter.
Sophomore Samantha Valentine (Ridge, NY) gave up six hits and only one earned run with three strikeouts and no walks before sophomore lefty Summer Cipriani (North Stonington) came on to retire the final two batters.
Joining Rossetti on the day among Eastern's big hitters were senior leftfielder Shannon Martin (Wethersfield), junior shortstop Alyssa Hancock (Waterford), Cipriani, junior catcher Taylor Smyth (Meriden), and sophomore second baseman Gina Georgetti (Milford). Martin and Hancock each had four hits and scored two runs, with Hancock driving in two and swiping four bases to keep her perfect on 16 stolen base attempts this year. Georgetti, Cipriani, Georgetti and Smyth all had three hits. Georgetti hit her second home run of the year and drove in six runs, four coming in the first game on a single and a three-run, fifth-inning home run.
Sophomore shortstop Kaitlyn Morse and Hemstock each drove in two runs with two hits for UMass, Hemstock's homer the only extra-base hit for her team.
Eastern hosts Springfield College Tuesday at 4 p.m. in a non-conference doubleheader.
