CLERMONT, Fla.- The Slippery Rock University softball team split a pair of games Saturday on the opening day of the National Training Center Tournament in Clermont, Florida.

The Rock opened Day One with a 3-0 loss to Caldwell University before earning a dominating 11-2 win over Georgian Court University in five innings.

Slippery Rock's record goes to 2-5 with 10 games remaining on the Spring Break schedule.

Caldwell 3, Slippery Rock 0
In the second inning, a pair of wild pitches advanced Caldwell's Hannah Polak to third base and set her up to score three batters later on a fielder's choice.

Caldwell's Melissa Rini sparked a two-run third inning with a triple to right field. Caldwell scored its two runs on individual RBI-singles to take a three-run lead. Brooke Dawson came in for relief with two outs and three runners on base and struck out one to get The Rock out of the jam.

SRU left two runners on base in the fourth, sixth and seventh innings, but was unable to plate a run in Game One.

Emily Nagle had two hits against the Cougars, one being a double, while Megan Brown also recorded two hits.

Paige Flore was tagged with the loss (0-2) after surrendering three runs. In her 2.2 innings of work, she struck out one. Dawson got 3.1 innings of relief work and struck out three batters.

Slippery Rock 11, Georgian Court 2
In the first inning against Georgian Court, Nagle picked back up where she left off after Game One with an RBI single through the left side to score Caitlin Baxter, who doubled down the left field line two batters before.

GCU took a one-run lead when they scored two runs in the bottom of the same inning; however, those would be the only runs the Lions would score the remainder of the game.

Nagle registered another RBI in the third inning that scored Brown, who singled to third base, stole second and then advanced to third on a Georgian Court fielding error. Kailey Myers scored Nagle on a deep sacrifice fly that GCU right fielder Breanna Keelan impressively snagged, to give The Rock a 3-2 lead.

Slippery Rock brought the bats in the fifth inning, as eight runs were scored on five hits and three GCU errors. Once again, Nagle got things going with a single up the middle. Three batters later, Myers reached base on an error and scored Nagle. Amanda Brush smacked an RBI single to left center to score Lauren Hawley, who got on base following a fielder's choice. GCU pitcher Marissa Trezza surrendered her first walk of the inning, which scored Hannah Nestor, who reached base on a little bunt to first base. Alexa Guglielmino reached on another GCU fielding error, scoring both Brush and Myers. Baxter knotted her third hit of the game with an RBI single to center field that scored Allie Fischer and made the score 9-2. Brown crushed a sacrifice fly to centerfield to score Guglielmino, and Hawley scored Baxter with an RBI ground-out to short stop to wrap up the eight-run fifth inning.

Nagle was a perfect 4-for-4 against Georgian Court with two RBI. Baxter (3) and Brush (2) also recorded multi-hit games, while Myers had two RBI.

Carly DeRose (2-1) earned the win after pitching five innings and striking out one. DeRose is now at 24 career wins, just six wins shy of Shauna Walker's (2008-11) win total of 30.  


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