Rensselaer peppered the visiting RIT Tigers with 24 hits and 22 runs, and scoreless outings from starting pitchers Maggie Kreis and Gaby Heim secured 15-1 and 7-5 victories.
Maggie Kreis took the mound in the first game in the early afternoon and allowed only two hits in three innings while striking out one. Kreis’s comfortable outing - neither RIT runner advanced past first base during her start - was not matched by her Tiger counterpart.
RIT’s defense was marred by errors in the first game, committing two consecutive errors to start the game and ending the game with eight. Rensselaer capitalized on the defensive lapses, scoring four in the first and three more in the second thanks to a two-run triple by Addison Shaffer and a RBI-double from Olivia Termi. The Tigers pulled their starter after the second, but the worst was yet to come.
The Engineers sent the game - which was already spiraling out of control for the Tigers - wide open with a seven-run third inning, capped off by a base-clearing double by Saratoga-native Jackie Cutting to set the score to 14-0. After a RBI-single by Natalie Koph and a scoreless top of the fifth, the game was called via mercy rule.
The second game, played twenty-five minutes after the first game concluded, had a quieter start for the Engineers. Gaby Heim, continuing off her second win against Skidmore, pacified the Tigers with four and one-third innings of effective pitching, allowing only two hits and a walk while striking out five.
The game remained scoreless until the third. With runners on second and third and Callista Adorno - batting a red-hot .409 this season - at the plate, the RIT hurler threw two wild pitches in the first three pitches of the at-bat, plating the two Engineers on base. Adorno added insult to injury a few pitches later by smoking a full-count pitch past the center field fence for her third homer of the year. Ryleigh Falvey’s two-run single in the fifth capped off the scoring for the Engineers at 7-0.
RIT would attempt to rally in the bottom of the seventh, plating five in the inning before a strike out by reliever Meghan Brown would end the game at 7-5.
After Saturday's games, RPI finds itself third in the Liberty League with a 6-4 record in the conference, behind Ithaca College and the University of Rochester. The Engineers will host Hamilton College this Tuesday. Find the box scores for the double header here and here.
