The Bison softball team split the weekend 2-2 in Wilmington, North Carolina this past weekend. The Orange and Blue had their first two wins of the season on Saturday against Marist and UNCW, then lost to both on Sunday.

In the Bison’s first match of the weekend they defeated Marist 2-1. The first two innings ended scoreless from both teams. In the third inning, Ava Aguilar ’25 scored on a wild pitch after the Bison loaded the bases, giving them a 1-0 lead.

Kaiya Burton ’23 was the starting pitcher for the Bison and struck out five batters, allowing four hits and only one walk. Marist got on the board in the bottom of the sixth, tying the game to 1-1.

In a low-scoring game, the Orange and Blue had to go into extra innings to claim the win. Chase Knapp ’23 had the game-winning run.

In the second game of the day, the Bison played UNCW and won 8-4. Kelly Toomey ’22 was on the mound for the entire game, allowing eight hits and striking out seven.

UNCW started the game with a hot streak, leading 3-0 before the Bison offense got hot themselves and went on to have 13 hits throughout the game.

Knapp had a double to contribute to the Bison’s comeback, alongside Juliette Basso ’25 batting a leadoff double and Kailyn Lorberter ’23 hitting an RBI single. 

The Bison managed to tie the game 3-3 in the seventh inning, followed by a fantastic performance in the top of the eighth inning, scoring five runs on four hits.

The Bison took an 8-3 lead going into the bottom of the eighth, where UNCW scored one more run before the end of the game.

Nicole Rivait ’22 spoke on the weekend, noting that “it was a great weekend at UNCW in the beautiful weather and there were a lot of bright spots for us as a team. It has been really fun to watch this team get better and better every game we play. It is obviously still very early in the long season and there is still a lot of work to be done, but I think we can walk away from this weekend happy with where we are at and where we are going. A lot of young players stepped up in really critical positions which was fun to see, and you also saw the senior leadership take over in some moments. We were finally able to work out some of the kinks that showed up during our first weekend and it just shows how resilient we are to the adversity we have faced so far.”

“This team does a really good job at leaning on each other for support and stepping into the roles that need to be filled, it took all 20 of us this weekend at UNCW to get it done and get those wins,” she added. “Although I think we could have walked away 4-0, the 2-2 weekend gave us a small taste of victory but also the taste of knowing there is still so much more work to be done.”

The Bison’s second day of their weekend games did not prove as successful. They lost to Marist 3-0 and to UNCW 6-4. 

It was a scoreless three innings leading off their game against Marist until Marist scored all three runs of the game in the bottom of the fourth inning. Out of the three runs scored, two Marist players hit home runs. 

The Bison left six runners on base, but could not convert any to runs throughout the game. The rest of the game was scoreless.

In the Bison’s last game of the weekend, they lost to UNCW 6-4, with the lead changing three times throughout the entirety of the game.

The Bison took the initial lead, up 3-0 by the bottom of the third. UNCW tied the game at their next at-bat, tying the score 3-3 at the top of the fourth. The Orange and Blue took back the lead by scoring a run in the bottom of the fourth, leading 4-3. 

Although the Bison battled, they had four errors which contributed to UNCW runs scoring and ultimately losing the game 6-4. 

The Bison ended their weekend splitting 2-2; they will travel to Greensboro, N.C. to compete in five games starting on Friday, Feb. 28.