Bridgeport Advances To 2021 ECC Softball Championship Series With Saturday Sweep Over Mercy College

Bridgeport, Conn.-Entering the afternoon needing two wins to advance to the 2021 East Coast Conference Championship Series, the University of Bridgeport softball team did just that, as playing as the visitors in both games on their home field, the top-seed seeded Purple Knights swept the fourth-seeded Mercy College Mavericks, winning game one, 3-1 in eight innings and completing the sweep with a 5-1 victory in game two, to take the best of three series, two games to one.  UB, now 20-7, on the season, will face St. Thomas Aquinas College, the number three seed in the tournament, in a best of three ECC Championship Series that will begin with a single game on Friday. May 14 and then two games, if necessary, on Saturday May 15.  All of the games will take place on Bridgeport's home field in Seaside Park.  STAC also won two games on Saturday to take its series against Molloy, 2-1.  Mercy closes out its 2021 season with a 17-14 record.

The winner of next weekend's ECC Softball Championship Series will receive an automatic bid the 2021 NCAA Division II Championship Tournament that will begin during the following week.

In Saturday's opener, UB grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning on an RBI-single by senior Elyssa Marmolejo (Rialto, Calif.).

Mercy would then tie the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the fourth when Casey Akers drove in Alex Karavias.

The game would stay tied a 1-1, as Bridgeport hurler, sophomore Kaite Burawski (Hartley, Del.) and Mercy's Alexi Benson, who was working in relief of starter Katelyn Shephard, traded scoreless frames until the top of eighth inning when the Purple Knights plated a pair of runs on a two-run homer to right field by sophomore Taylor Yates (Elk Grove, Calf.) that scored senior Kiara Ramon (Stamford, Conn.), who led off the inning with a ringing double.  Yates leads Bridgeport in home runs so far this season with five.

Those two runs would be all Burawski needed, as she fired a scoreless bottom of the eighth to up her season record to 12-3.  In Saturday's opener, she allowed six hits and one run, as she fanned five and issued four bases on balls.

Benson (9-3 on the season after game one) took the loss working five innings, in which she gave up five hits, two runs with one strikeout and one walk.

In deciding nightcap, the Purple Knights again struck first scoring a run in the top of the third on an RBI-double by sophomore Meg McFarland (Monroe, Conn.) and a perfectly executed safety squeeze bunt by senior Samantha Ferreri  (Hauppauge, N.Y.) in the fourth inning.

The Mavericks would score their only run in game two on an RBI-base hit from Samantha Franck in the bottom of the fifth.  Franck, Ylannah Guzman and Danielle Burgos, each had two hits for Mercy in game two, as the Mavericks outhit Bridgeport, 9-8.

UB would added three insurance runs in the top of the sixth on a two-RBI double by Ferreri and an RBI-single by freshman Kianna Robinson (Hamden, Conn.), who went 3-for-3 at the plate in game two.

Burawski, who fired every pitch for Bridgeport in the three games on Friday and Saturday, moved to 13-3 on the season, as she twirled completed game number 13 of 2021 in the game two win.   Kaite allowed nine hits and one run in the nightcap with two strikeouts and one walk.

Alexi Benson, who earned a decision for the Mavericks in all three games of the series going 1-2, took the loss in game two, as she pitched 5.1 innings allowing seven hits and five runs with one strikeout and two walks.  Benson closed out the season with a 9-4 record in the circle.