United States Coast Guard Academy - Department of Athletics - Softball

WORCESTER, MASS.--(4/2/10)--Sophomore Hayley Feindel struck out the side with runners on second and third in the bottom of the ninth as Coast Guard completed a sweep of WPI in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) doubleheader. The Bears won the opener 1-0 before winning the night cap 3-2 in nine innings.

Coast Guard improves to 14-4 overall and 5-1 in conference play while WPI drops to 10-7 overall and 2-4 in the NEWMAC.

Feindel (12-4) pitched all 16 innings of the doubleheader for visiting Coast Guard and turned in two outstanding performances. In the opener, Feindel allowed only two hits and struck out 11 in a 1-0 complete-game shutout. In game two, the sophomore threw nine more frames, striking out 11 more Engineers while allowing just a two-run blip in the fourth inning enroute to her second win of the day.

Feindel now has 526 career strikeouts to move into second place on the Bears' all-time strikeouts list passing Katie Wunderlich ('01) who had 524 strikeouts in her career.

In game one, Feindel and WPI's Allie Hardy matched zeroes for five innings before Coast Guard pushed across a run in the sixth that would be the difference. Senior third baseman Courtney Wolf lined a one-out double before moving to third and scoring on a Carin Sweeney bloop to right. The run would stand up, as Feindel permitted just one more hit for the rest of the game.

Hardy also tossed a complete game in game one, allowing just the one run on seven hits en route to suffering the hard-luck loss. First baseman Maddie Buchert led Coast Guard with two hits and a stolen base in the opener.

Coast Guard would get on the board first once again in game two, plating two in the third inning to take an early 2-0 lead. Right fielder Stacia Sarwinski led off and was hit by a pitch and scored on a Buchert RBI double. Then with two out, catcher Amanda Frederick lined a double to left driving in her 100th career run, that gave the visitors a two-run advantage.

WPI came back to tie the game in the fourth. Chelsea Fogarty smacked a one-out single to center before Kim Martilla cranked a two-run shot to left. The blast was Martilla's first home run of the season.

The teams would remain deadlocked and head into extra innings. In the bottom of the eighth, WPI narrowly missed walking off with the victory as Erin Beaulieu produced a two-out single with Emily Hartzell standing on second. Hartzell was gunned down at the plate however, as Sweeney hit the cutoff in Buchert, who threw Hartzell out, preserving the tie and sending the contest into the ninth.

In the ninth, Summer Dupler went to second via softball's international tiebreaker rules, and moved to third on a sac bunt before scoring Coast Guard's third run on squeeze bunt from Jamie Kim as the Bears manufactured the go-ahead run. Erin Saari was placed on second in the Engineer ninth before Fogarty produced a single to center to spark WPI in its final at-bat. Fogarty moved to second on the throw that stopped Saari at third, as WPI was set up to tie the game once again with two runners in scoring position. Feindel would buckle down however, striking out the next three batters swinging to seal her second win of the afternoon with a flourish.

WPI's Erin Flaherty pitched all nine innings of the second game for the hosts, allowing three runs on four hits while striking out seven. Flaherty fell to 4-3 on the year. Fogarty and Katrina Boynton each recorded multi-hit games for the Crimson and Gray, which scratched out eight hits in the game but had trouble scoring after Martilla's two-run homer.

Buchert, Frederick and Holli Bastinck each doubled for the visiting Bears.