By Tyler McCord, Staff Writer
Last weekend in Georgia, the Pride improved its record with a 2-1 series win over Georgia State to an overall record of 37-10 and 15-2 in the conference. With the CAA Championships slowly sneaking up, this was an important series for the Pride. Hofstra outscored 32-17 Georgia State 7-2 over a span of three games. The first game of three was a pitcher's duel with freshman Olivia Galati toeing the slab for the Pride. Galati and Georgia State's pitcher combined for a total of seventeen strikeouts; eleven coming from Galati and seven from Langford.
With a combined six hits and seven strikeouts, Hofstra could not find a way to get a run across the plate. The Pride came up one run short while the Panthers defeated Hofstra 1-0 in ten innings on a bunt squeeze by Rachel Cunningham of Georgia State. This defeat was only Hofstra's second conference loss of the season. Freshman Rachel Senatore led the Pride with two hits in the first game of the day.
In the nightcap, it was Hofstra who struck first with two runs in the second inning with a two out, two-run double by sophomore infielder Jess Hirschbuhl. Georgia State quickly responded by getting one run back from Hofstra sophomore pitcher, Erin Wade to make it 2-1 after two innings of play. Then from there, the Pride outscored the Panthers 3-0 in the next seven innings of play for a final score of 5-1. Wade struck out seven while winning her fifteenth game of the season. Hirschbuhl led the team in the win with two hits and three RBI's.
With the series locked at 1-1, Sunday would be the eventual tiebreaker for the two teams and an opportunity for the Pride to lock up the top seed in the CAA. With another matchup between pitchers Olivia Galati and McCall Langford, came another pitcher's duel. Freshman right fielder, Tessa Ziemba, broke the 0-0 tie with a solo homerun in the second inning to put the Pride on the scoreboard 1-0. In the following inning, it was junior Sara Michalowski who drove in a run with a sacrifice fly to make the score 2-0. With Galati on the mound, that was all the Pride needed. Galati struck out seven in 6.2 innings of work. Hofstra found themselves in a bit of a jam in the seventh inning, but Galati and Wade, together, worked out of it with a double-play and a line out to Ziemba to end the game. With this win, the Pride capture the no. 1 seed in the CAA Tournament. Hofstra has not lost a conference series since 2006 when Delaware took two out of three games over the Pride.
With its last and final non-conference opponent remaining, Hofstra hosted the Iona Gaels on Tuesday. The Gaels came into Hempstead with an overall record of 23-22 and departed with a .500 record. Wade cruised through seven innings of work while striking out seven as well. The Hofstra bats came alive against Iona with a combined twelve hits. Freshman right fielder Tessa Ziemba led the team with three of its twelve hits and recorded two RBI's for the Pride. Senior first baseman Michele DePasquale had the lone double for Hofstra.
(Sean M. Gates/The Chronicle)