NEW ROCHELLE, NY — The Monroe College softball team moved back to the .500 mark for the season, reaching 8-8 with a doubleheader sweep of Burlington County College on Tuesday. The Mustangs won the opener 5-4, and took the nightcap 12-4.
The Barons took a 1-0 lead with a run in the first inning of game one. Monroe answered as Cassidy Wootten tripled and scored on an errant throw in the bottom of the inning. Burlington added two runs in the third to grab a 3-1 lead. The Mustangs got one back in the fourth thanks to an unearned run. Crystal Estrada legged out a grounder to third that was thrown away for an error, and moved to second on the toss. Miranda Diaz brought her in with an RBI base hit to right field. The Barons led 3-2 after four innings.
The score stayed at 3-2 until Monroe’s final at-bat. With one out, Wootten doubled down the left field line. Taylor White followed with a single to left. Wootten hustled around and beat the throw home from the outfield. The game was tied at 3-3 and went into extra innings.
Burlington pushed a run across in the top of the eighth, as both sides started the inning with runners on second due to the international tiebreaker rule. In the bottom of the inning, Estrada lifted an RBI sacrifice fly to left that scored Yeisy Cruz to even the score at 4-4. After a walk and a single put runners on first and second, Leidaly Garcia was the hero of the game, driving in Carly Coleman on an RBI hit to left. Monroe won 5-4.
Game two saw the Mustangs jump out to an 11-0 lead in the first three innings before winning 12-4 in six. Monroe got four runs on three hits in the first inning. Yalitza Rodriguez, Gabrielle Placencia and Chayne Dauo all had RBI.
The team scored five times in the second inning on six hits. Toni Harris and Placencia each drove in a pair in the inning. The Mustangs added two more in the third as Rodriguez drove in a run with a single and later scored on a wild pitch.
Burlington earned four runs back in the fourth and fifth innings, but Monroe added a run in the sixth to end the game via the eight-run-rule. Cruz drove in the deciding run with an RBI hit.