| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Feb. 17, 2017
ATLANTA, Ga. - The Penn State softball team earned a win for the Big Ten Conference in the second annual Big Ten / ACC Challenge as it notched a 3-2 victory over the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech Friday, Feb. 17 at Mewborn Field.
Redshirt-junior Mia Monopoli (San Francisco, Calif.) paced the Nittany Lions at the plate in her first start of the season, driving in two runs on one hit in the top of the second inning, while Toni Polk (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) recorded her first home run of the season in the top of the fourth inning to score the final Nittany Lion run.
Sophomore Madison Seifert (Wildwood, Mo.) earned her third start in the circle, throwing all seven innings and tying a career-high six strikeouts against the Yellow Jackets. Seifert gave up just six hits in the seven inning outing, while allowing one run to cross the plate.
Malea Bell led Georgia Tech at the dish, going 3-for-4 with two RBI, while Kendall Chadwich tallied two hits for the Yellow Jackets and Samantha Pierannunzi had one hit and scored one run.
Emily Anderson suffered the loss in the circle for Georgia Tech, hurling all seven innings with nine strikeouts and giving up six hits to the Blue and White.
The Nittany Lions put together a string of hits in the top of the second starting with a Delaney Elling (Washington, Pa.) single to shallow left field and followed by a Polk double over the left fielder's head to put runners on second and third with one out. Monopoli dug in with two outs and placed a hit right over the short stop's head to plate both Elling and Polk and give Penn State the 2-0 lead over the Yellow Jackets.
Georgia Tech answered in the bottom of the third inning when a lead off triple down the first base line from Pierannunzi turned into a run after a blooper single over second base plated her from third.
The Nittany Lions responded to the Jackets run in the bottom of the third when Polk led off the inning with her first home run of the season over the right field wall to bring the Penn State lead back to two, 3-1.
The Yellow Jackets continued to battle in the bottom of the seventh inning when a walk and an error moved runners into scoring position before a double to the right field wall plated the run and put the tying run 60 feet from home with one out. Penn State retired the next two batters with big defensive plays to hold onto the 3-2 victory in game one of the Big Ten / ACC Challenge.
Up Next:
Penn State will take on Virginia Tech at 10 a.m. on day two of the Big Ten / ACC Challenge before closing out the day with a 3 p.m. contest against Georgia Tech.