The softball team hosted a three-game series against Army West Point on March 24-25, marking the opening weekend of Patriot League competition. The Bison split their first day of play with Army, winning 1-0 and losing 3-6, and lost their third game against the Black Knights 0-1 the following day. Their overall record moves to 9-18 and 1-2 in the Patriot League.

During their first game against the Black Knights, Raeanne Geffert ’20 pitched all seven innings, walking only one batter and striking out three. The Bison scored their only run off of an infield single from catcher Taylor Wolfgang ’21. Pinch-runner Tara Baglivo ’21 scored from second base off of Wolfgang’s shot up the middle of the infield.

All in all, the Orange and Blue had three hits, including a double by Lauren Hadley ’19 and singles from Wolfgang and Jazmyn Stokes ’21. Wolfgang saved the Bison from a potential West Point rally in the seventh inning when she threw out an Army runner as she attempted to steal from first to second.

In the second game of Saturday’s double header, the Bison failed to pull off a second win, falling to a score of 6-3. In this contest, Meghan Kovac ’18 notched her 20th career home run, tying her for most career home runs in program history with Lauren Litts ’07. Kovac sent the ball over the left-field fence in the seventh inning, which got the three-run inning started, but the effort wasn’t enough to match Army’s six runs. Ryanne Rokos ’19 had an RBI single, followed by an RBI groundout from Paulina Gutkin ’18 and a single by Lauren Lichtenwalner ’20.

“We have competed well this season and just have more work to do but I think that we are looking at a lot of success with the season that is left,” Hadley said. “There is always room for improvement, but I think that this was a great first weekend for us despite not getting the result that we wanted.”

The Bison fought hard against the Black Knights on Sunday, and the teams went into the seventh inning in a scoreless tie. Putting two of the best pitchers in the Patriot League against each other — Geffert and Army’s Courtney Springman — proved challenging for both teams until the seventh inning, when Army was able to score a run with a single up the middle of the infield. The Orange and Blue had three hits in the game, including a triple from Baglivo during her sixth career start and singles from Gutkin and Rokos. However, none of these hits amounted to a run, and the Bison lost the contest by a score of 1-0.

Geffert struck out nine batters and did not give up a single walk. She is second in the Patriot League in strikeouts on the season with 69, behind only Springman.

“We started the weekend off strong with a hard-fought win thanks to our solid defense and clutch hitting,” Wolfgang said. “Our next two games were tough losses but we were never counted out at any moment as was seen by our rally in the 7th in the second game and our close comeback in Sunday’s game”.

The Bison will take the field again and host Holy Cross from March 30-April 1 at Becker Field.