St. Clair Women’s Softball Unable to Stop Durham

The St. Clair College Women’s Softball team were unable to upset OCAA 1st Place Durham College (Oshawa) Sunday afternoon dropping 9-8 and 3-0 decisions at the campus SportsPark Diamond. The Saints are now 10-7 and fell to 4th place as Durham moved to 18-0 on the season.

Game one lasted 2 hours and 18 minutes and was played under a persistent mist as the pitchers needed to exchange for a dry ball often during the high scoring affair. St. Clair jumped ahead 3-0 in the 1st inning but a pair of Durham 2-run homers in consecutive innings put the Lords in front 4-3 after three innings. Durham scored four runs with two outs in the 4th inning and the Saints answered with four runs of their own in the bottom half. Durham restored a 2-run cushion in the 5th inning and St. Clair was able to add another run in the 6th but that ended the scoring. Ada Umerah (Maple, ON) led the Saints offensively driving in three runs on a single and a triple to go with a walk and a run scored. Reese Grondin (LaSalle, ON/St. Thomas of Villanova) had a single and two of her walks moved runners across the plate during St. Clair rallies.

Game two was played under dryer conditions as Durham pushed across two runs in the 2nd inning and another in the 5th which accounted for all the scoring. The Saints left eight runners on base in the contest which proved to be a significant stumbling block. St. Clair starter Ashton Fong (Colwood, BC) took her first loss of the season going the distance giving up just one earned run on five hits and three walks but struck out two Durham batters. Shae-Lyn Murphy (Windsor, ON/Holy Names) was 3-for-4 with three singles in the game for the Saints.

St. Clair has separate road doubleheader matchups this coming week when they travel to Hamilton on Wednesday to face Mohawk College and are in London on Sunday to meet Fanshawe College.