Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Garden City, N.Y. - The Adelphi University softball team opened the 2013 season on Saturday, March 2 with a home double header against Northeast-10 Conference rival UMass-Lowell on Janet L. Ficke Field. The Panther bats secured a victory in game one, out scoring the Riverhawks 5-3, while Laurin Watts shut down the visitors in game two to the tune of 1-0. With the sweep Adelphi opens the season, 2-0 overall and 2-0 in the conference, while UMass-Lowell falls to 2-6 and 0-2.

Game One

Adelphi struck the first blow in the bottom of the third when a Victoria Wink single to left center scored Heather Salerno from third, followed by Kayla Reiger reaching home on an error by the short stop, 2-0 Panthers. An inning later Elizabeth Lindner smacked a single that brought home Katie Andrews to push the Adelphi cushion to 3-0.

The Riverhawks pulled within one run in the top of the fifth, taking advantage of an Adelphi miscue to score two unearned runs, making the count 3-2. The Brown and Gold answered right back in the bottom of the inning getting the first run back on a Wink lead off home run that cleared the left field wall and the second on an Andrews double that brought Jaclyn Binstock home from first, 5-2.

Devon Kelly turned in a scoreless sixth on the mound for Adelphi and held the Riverhawks to just one run in the seventh to secure her first win of the season, 5-3. In the win, Kelly struck out five and walked one, while allowing no earned runs. 

Wink led the attack, going 3-4 with two RBI and a run scored, while six other Panthers registered one hit, including Salerno, who was 1-2 with a run scored and a walk.

Game Two

Watts was the story of game two in her first outing of the year as she went the distance for the win in a 1-0 ball game that saw her strike out eight, walk one and allow just two hits. Watts got all the run support she would need in the bottom of the third when Emily Dorko turned a single into a double courtesy of her first theft of the season, which then became a run thanks to a Meghan Heiser drive to center, 1-0.

The Panthers combined for four hits in the victory as Dorko, Wink and Andrews were each 1-3, with Heiser going 1-2. 

Adelphi returns to action on Sunday, March 3 when they play host to Merrimack College in a single game at 11:00 am on Janet L. Ficke Field.