Bridgeport, Conn.-The University of Bridgeport softball team got a busy week of play underway on Tuesday afternoon with a key East Coast Conference doubleheader split with the visiting St. Thomas Aquinas College Spartans, as STAC took the opener, 5-3, and the Purple Knights bounced back to win the nightcap, 5-0, to keep their slim hold atop the ECC standings. With the split, UB is now 13-4 both overall and in conference play. The Spartans are now 21-7 overall and 15-5 in the ECC.
In game one, the visitors snapped a 2-2 with a run in the fifth inning and added a pair of insurance tallies in the seventh inning to hold on for the win. Senior Kaira Ramon (Stamford, Conn.) blasted her second home run of the season in the opener to tie this up at 2-2 in the bottom of the third inning, and senior Elyssa Marmolejo (Rialto, Calif.) plus sophomore Samantha Schiebe (Monroe, Conn.), each had three hits. Freshman Kianna Robinson (Hamden, Conn.) chipped in an RBI grounder in the seventh for the Purple Knights.
In game two, sophomore Kaite Burawski (Hartley, Del.) fired her third shutout of 2021 limiting STAC to only four hits over seven innings in which she fanned 12 batters and walked only one. Kaite's season record is now an impressive 7-1.
Her teammates gave her all the offense she would need crossing the plate three time in the third and adding two more runs in the fifth.
Kaira Ramon added to more hits and two RBI in the nightcap, and Samantha Schiebe also had two hits and drove in a run for the game two winners.
UB also got runs batted in from Elyssa Marmolejo and sophomore Taylor Yates (Elk Grove, Calif.) to aid the winning cause.
Up next, the UB softball team is right back in action on Wednesday afternoon, as the Purple Knights will face another stern test traveling to Mercy College. Play will begin on Wednesday at 12 noon with the completion of the April 22 game that was suspended by darkness in the Park City tied a 1-1 in the top of the ninth inning, and that will then be followed by the regularly scheduled twinbill.