LEWISTON — After sweeping a doubleheader Thursday, the Bates College softball team had some momentum going into an upcoming stretch of home games.

The Bobcats had won their fourth and fifth games of the season against the University of Maine at Farmington Beavers. That was a day after a pair of one-run losses against USM.

Before Bates could build on that momentum this weekend, though, Tufts put an end to it with a clean sweep of three games, including a doubleheader Saturday.

The Jumbos won 10-1 in the first game and then finished the sweep with a 13-0 victory. Both games were shortended to five innings.

No. 4 Tufts beat Bates Friday 9-1 and improved to  26-3 overall and 8-0 in the conference. The Bobcats are now 5-15, 1-7 in the NESCAC.

“We really try to focus on what we do,” said Bates coach McKell Barnes. “It’s not about the other team or what they’ve done. Certainly they’re a successful team. It’s not about who’s the better team. It’s about who plays better that day. Certainly they played much better then us both days and got the wins.”

Bates managed only three hits in the first game Saturday and then only two in the second. Tufts also scored three runs in the first inning of the opening game and then five to open the second game.

“Our philosophy is on what we can control, and we didn’t do that,” Barnes said. “I feel regardless of how good they are, we didn’t control what we could have, and this is the result.”

Lauren Giglio (11-1) got the win in the first game. She struck out 11 and allowed just one earned run on three hits. Allyson Fournier started the second game and allowed no hits in two innings. Erica Country finished the game, striking out four and allowing two hits.  Fournier had struck out 11 and allowed just two hits in Friday’s win.

“All four of our pitchers are injured right now,” said Tufts coach Cheryl Milligan. “We have them all on short duty. It was nice to be able to split the load. Erica, this is her first game back from an injury. Allyson hasn’t been throwing her dominant pitch for a couple weeks now. Lauren is probably the most injured of them all, but they all went out there and toughed it out.”

Bates’ Brenna Callahan pitched both games Saturday. Kelsey Freedman earned the loss Friday. Both pitchers are only juniors.

“Our pitchers did a phenomenal job this weekend,” Barnes said. “They threw a lot of strikes. They hit the spots they needed to. I’m really proud of that leadership when things weren’t going our way.”

In the first game, Tufts scored three in the first on RBI  from Cassie Ruscz, Summer Horowitz and Chrissie Massrey. Bates got one back in the bottom of the inning on a Karen Lockhart home run. Ruscz, who finished with four RBI in the first game, singled home a run to make it 4-1 in the second.

In the third, Christina Raso walked with the bases loaded. Michelle Cooprider singled in a pair. Jo Clair followed with an RBI single and Ruscz plated another with a sacrifice fly.

Ruscz added an RBI on a fielder’s choice in the fifth.

The only other hit for Bates came from Kira Shaikh.

In the second game, the Jumbos scored five in the first. Ruscz walked with the bases loaded. Gracie Marshall followed with a two-run single. Raso singled up the middle to plate another pair.

In the second, Clair hit a two-run homer, and Ruscz followed with a solo shot for the 8-0 lead. In the third, Marshall hit a three-run homer to make it 11-0. In the fourth, Chrissie Massrey singled in a run and Marly Becker plated the final run with a sacrifice fly.

“I think this team, they like to rise to challenges,” Milligan said. “That’s something we talked about last week. We want to score in the first inning. We were settling into games, and if we’re going to be the team we want to be, we’ve got to go out there and expect to score in the first inning.”

Bates’s only hits came on a double by Melissa Paione and a single by Marina Barsoum.

After playing just two games in a span of 12 days, Saturday’s game were the seventh and eighth played for Bates this week. They host Maine Maritime in a doubleheader Monday.

“That’s the nature of playing softball in Maine,” Barnes said. “You have to roll with the punches. I like to think it gives us the grit, the edge, that X-factor that we can grind through. We’ll get there. It’s a process.”

kmills@sunjournal.com

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