PHILADELPHIA – Coppin State's softball team dropped a pair of games at University of Pennsylvania on Friday afternoon, falling 5-4 in an extra-inning affair in game one, and 6-0 in the nightcap. The Eagles are now 4-6 on the season while the Quakers moved to 4-9.
Game 1: Penn def. Coppin State, 5-4 (9 innings)
CSU rallied from a 4-0 deficit in game one to tie the score with a four-run fifth inning.
Brooklyn Tapusoa and
Julianna Mejia led off the inning with singles before advancing on a sac bunt.
Avianna Peterson drove in the first run with a single to short before combining with Mejia on a double steal to make it a two-run deficit.
Celeste Gonzales followed with a single to put the tying run at first before a sacrifice fly from
Aniyah Haley made it a one-run game.
Manaia Fonoti then lined a shot down the line in left for a double, scoring Gonzales easily from second to tie it up.
Coppin threatened to take the lead in the seventh as Fonoti was hit by a pitch, followed by a single from
Seryna Esparza, but the Eagles failed to capitalize.
Relief pitcher
Vanessa Carrizosa threw a 1-2-3 seventh to send the game into extra innings and repeated that in the eighth before Penn scored an unearned run in the ninth to win it.
Coppin outhit Penn, 8-5, in the opener, getting two hits and a run each from Tapusoa and Mejia with Mejia also drawing a walk. Carrizosa helped her own cause with a pair of sacrifice hits.
Emily Quintero started the game and gave up just two earned runs in 3.1 innings before Carrizosa went the final 4.2 innings, allowing no earned runs on one hit while taking the loss.
Game 2: Penn def. Coppin State, 6-0
Four different Eagles recorded base hits for the Eagles as Quintero and Carrizosa once again split time on the rubber. Quintero took the loss, giving up five runs over the first 4.0 innings before Carrizosa went the final 2.0 innings, striking out three while giving up a run.
Penn scored once in the second, four in the fourth and one in the sixth.
Coppin's best chance to score came in the fifth following back-to-back one-out singles from Mejia and Quintero before Penn got a pair of popups to end the innings. Haley doubled in the first, and Fonoti added a ground-rule double in the sixth, but both were left stranded.
Up Next: The teams will close out the three-game series on ESPN+ at 12:30 pm on Sunday, March 10.
