Claremont, Calif. (March 12, 2012) — Bri Marcantoni ’12, Ari Roach ’12 and Emily Buika ’12 continued to show impressive senior leadership in helping the Women’s Softball team extend its winning streak to six games with a 4-0 week. With the Sagehens trailing Staten Island on Friday, Roach hit a solo homer to tie the score, and after the team fell behind again, Marcantoni led off the bottom of the seventh with a double that set the table for a three-run comeback and a 7-6 win. On Saturday, Pitzer-Pomona trailed Whittier 1-0 early, but Marcantoni tied the game with a solo homer in the fourth and Shannon Julius ’14 set up the winning run in extra innings by stealing third and coming home on a ground ball. In the nightcap against Whittier, Buika had a key single in the seventh inning to help set up a run as the Sagehens won yet another close one. In addition to the seniors, Ashley Morello ’15 also has been a part of an impressive freshman class this year and now leads the team in hitting at .392.
Women’s Water Polo co-hosted the Claremont Convergence and continued to build towards its hopes of a SCIAC championship. The Sagehens fell to Division I power UC Irvine, and lost a tight 12-11 decision to Cal Baptist (which defeated Pitzer-Pomona by eight earlier this season) on the first day. On the second day, though, the team regrouped for a 14-8 win over Siena and a 7-4 win over SCIAC foe Whittier, its third win over a SCIAC opponent in three tries this spring (earlier it defeated CMS and Redlands at La Verne’s tournament). Alyssa Woodward ’15 continued her strong rookie season with five goals in the two wins, while Annie Oxborough-Yankus ’12 came up big in the second half against Whittier by twice answering Poet goals on the very next possession to keep the momentum on the Sagehens side.
Men’s Tennis (ranked No. 12 nationally) and Women’s Tennis (ranked No. 9) both continued to build their momentum for the latter half of the season with some tough home matches. Men’s Tennis went 3-1 with wins over Mary Washington, Haverford and Swarthmore. Women’s Tennis went 2-1 with wins over Vassar and UC Santa Cruz. Both teams lost to Trinity (Texas) on Saturday. Chris Wiechert ’14 was undefeated on the week at No. 2 singles without losing a set. Jamie Solomon ’13, ranked No. 14 nationally, picked up a tiebreaker win on the women’s side against UC Santa Cruz, but suffered her first loss of the year to Trinity, also in a tiebreaker. Pauley Courts will be busy all week with lots of great tennis against nationally ranked opponents, as the women face Bowdoin on Monday, both teams face Carnegie Mellon on Tuesday, and the men play Kenyon on Friday in its first match of the Stag-Hen Invitational.
Men’s Baseball ended its three-game series with La Verne with a 10-4 win after a grueling 9-8 extra-inning loss in the first game of the series. Erik Munzer ’13 put the Sagehens ahead with a sacrifice fly in the tenth, but SCIAC-leading La Verne answered with two runs in the bottom half. Munzer also had two hits and runs scored in the second game of the series, while E.J. Lopez ’15 had two hits and two RBI. The Sagehens will host several non-conference home games this weekend, facing Ithaca and Rutgers-Newark on Friday, Kean College on Saturday and Puget Sound on Sunday.
The Men’s and Women’s Track and Field teams competed in the first half of their annual dual meet with Occidental and each head into the second half with leads, thanks largely to their performances in the field events. Alex Oxborough-Yankus PI ’14 (younger sister of Annie from the women’s water polo team) took first in the discus and hammer throws, and Ellen Yamasaki PI ’15 won the long jump and triple jump. Roxanne Cook ’13 was also second in the 1500 meters. The meet ends this week with the distance carnival at Occidental and the results from those events will be added to the totals from this weekend (with the Sagehen women leading by 13, and the men ahead in a close one 52-51).
Women’s Lacrosse has a pair of home games this week and a trip to Seattle on the weekend. The Sagehens host Puget Sound on Wednesday at 11 a.m. and North Central (Ill.) on Friday at 11 a.m., before traveling to face Puget Sound again on the road on Saturday, and then wrap up the busy week with Pacific on Sunday at Puget Sound. In its only game of this past week, Jana London ’14 had three goals and two assists in a tight 13-12 loss to Fort Lewis on Monday.
