Complete NCAA Division II Regional Rankings
Game 1 Box Score
Game 2 Box Score
FLUSHING, N.Y. – Senior hurler Bryttne Santana fired a complete-game two-hitter with a season-best 14 strikeouts in the opening game Wednesday afternoon, while Anniela Vaccaro and Catherine Pastor each launched a home run in the nightcap, as the Queens College softball team (16-10, 5-3 ECC), ranked No. 6 in this afternoon's (April 6) NCAA Division II East Region Rankings, scored an East Coast Conference doubleheader sweep over visiting St. Thomas Aquinas College (9-11, 4-4). The Knights took the first contest by a 6-1 count, before securing a 9-3 decision in the second game. QC ripped 11 hits offensively in each contest.
Game 1: Queens 6, St. Thomas Aquinas 1
Santana threw 88 of her 124 pitches for strikes, issued just two walks and the run she allowed was unearned. Queens supported her on offense with two runs in the first inning, and three more in the second frame. Allison Breakey (3-for-4, 2 R, 2 RBI) doubled home Samantha Stallone (1-for-3) to start the first inning, before coming around to score on Kaitlyn Crowley's (2-for-4, 2 RBI, SB) left-side single.
In the second stanza, Vaccaro's left-side single plated Pastor – who led off the inning with a single through the right side of the infield – to push the lead to 3-0. Crowley's base-knock to left-center field scored Breakey, before Vaccaro came home on Carla Pennolino's 1-0 single to center field.
The teams traded one run apiece in the fifth inning, with St. Thomas Aquinas scoring when Michelle Sasso reached on an infield error to score Maura Power, and the Knights countering when Breakey singled home Santana (2-for-3, double).
Game 2: Queens 9, St. Thomas Aquinas 3
Stallone (2-for-4, 2 SB) scored in the first inning when Vaccaro (2-for-3, double, HR) grounded into a double play to put Queens on the board, before Vaccaro redeemed herself two innings later with a two-run double to center field – scoring Stallone and Breakey (1-for-3) in the process.
STAC's Heather Clausen (double, homer) led off the top of the fourth with a first-pitch homer off Queens starter Faith Tessmer (7-4 record; CG, 5 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 6 K) to put the Spartans on the board, before the Knights countered with three runs in the bottom of the fifth to move ahead, 6-1. Melissa Natale (2-for-2) and Pastor (2-for-3) scored on separate wild pitches, before Vaccaro roped a 2-0 pitch to left-center field for her team-best sixth homer of the season.
Consecutive wild pitches allowed St. Thomas Aquinas to score two runs in the top of the sixth inning to slice the QC lead to 6-3, before a three-run inning by the Knights pushed the home side further ahead. Pastor's first homer of the season was a line-drive shot to left field, and scored Natale and pinch-runner Alexa Santiago – who saw her first college softball action.
Weather permitting, head coach Brian DeMasters's Queens side is scheduled to be back in action at home Thursday afternoon, in a 3 p.m. ECC twinbill against New York Institute of Technology.
