After being swept in its doubleheader against Albany on Saturday, the Binghamton University softball team appeared as if it were going to suffer the same fate Sunday.
The Bearcats (14-16, 5-5 America East) allowed three quick first-inning runs to the Great Danes (23-11, 6-3 AE) and looked as if they were about to be swept. But in the bottom of the first with bases loaded, one swing from BU freshman third baseman Kate Richard changed the entire complexion of the game.
“I knew my team believed in me, I knew my coaches believed in me, I knew everyone believed in me and that’s all I needed to know,” Richard said. “When I go up there I just need to know that everyone believes in me and I can believe in myself.”
After three consecutive Bearcats reached base, freshman centerfielder Jessica Rutherford drew an RBI walk to make the score 3-1. That is when Richard stepped to the plate and, with two strikes, drilled the ball over the right-centerfield fence to give BU a 5-3 advantage, its first lead in the series since the first inning of game one.
“I just knew I had two strikes and I had to fight whatever it was off and she gave me the pitch I was looking for,” Richard said. “I knew she [Albany freshman pitcher Devin Durando] was working outside all yesterday and today. I knew it was coming and I just went with the pitch.”
The Bearcats would not relinquish the lead. With the bases again loaded in the bottom of the second, Rutherford — who was named the AE Rookie of the Week on Monday — delivered a bases-clearing double to push BU’s lead to five, 8-3. Binghamton added an insurance run in the third on a sacrifice fly from senior shortstop Caytlin Friis, and two in the sixth off of a Great Dane error and an RBI bunt from junior catcher Lisa Cadogan en route to an 11-6 victory.
“I was really proud of how we got behind in the first inning and how we responded,” BU head coach Michelle Burrell said. “We worked all game long to just keep putting runs on the board and I think that made a huge difference. We had momentum all game.”
BU’s victory on Sunday came on the heels of the Great Danes’ doubleheader sweep Saturday. Albany dominated the Bearcats offensively in both games, combining for 24 hits and 21 runs over the course of the afternoon.
In the opener, BU jumped out to an early three-run advantage in the bottom of the first, but did not hold the lead for long. Albany plated six in the top of the third and two in the seventh, while the Bearcats managed just three hits and two runs over the next six innings, falling 8-5.
Game two of the doubleheader saw the Great Danes jump over Binghamton early and often. Albany scored in innings one through five and built a 10-2 lead by the bottom of the third.
While the Bearcats strung together 14 hits in the mercy-shortened five-inning contest, they failed to drive in runners on base en route to the 13-4 loss. BU additionally left 11 stranded on the base paths, an area that Binghamton improved upon Sunday, when the Bearcats left just four players on base despite batting one extra time.
“We were just focused on having good quality at-bats,” Burrell said of her team’s improvement at the plate. “We didn’t have as many hits as we necessarily had [Saturday], but we had good, timely hits and that can be the difference in the game.”
After the weekend series, Binghamton sits in fifth place of the America East standings. BU is a half-game behind Maine for the fourth and final playoff spot in the AE tournament, to be hosted by the regular season champion May 7-9.
BU is set to return to action Wednesday in a non-conference doubleheader at Colgate. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m., with a second game directly following, from the Eaton Street Softball Complex in Hamilton, New York.