With two down in the bottom of the eighth, Tiegan Walsh stands on second with Riain Keefe at the plate. The score is tied 4-4. The series is tied 1-1 and the pressure is on. But Keefe cuts through that tension with a line drive up the middle. Buffalo second baseman Delaney Ellis extends her glove to the sky but can only tip the ball as it falls to the outfield grass. Walsh scores, and the Massachusetts softball team has its first Mid-American series victory thanks to clutch hitting from its senior right fielder.
This 5-4 victory in the second half of a Wednesday doubleheader, plus a 3-2 win on Tuesday, pushed UMass (13-22, 5-10 MAC) past the Bulls (18-22, 7-8 MAC). Buffalo’s only win at Sortino Field came in a 21-4 trouncing, a defeat the home squad quickly bounced back from.
Keefe was at the center of this Minutewomen recharge, driving in four runs and scoring the fifth herself in the final game of the series. The eighth-inning walk-off was the Raynham, MA native’s second clutch, go-ahead hit of the game, topping a two-run double in the sixth.
“I know that I do well under pressure,” Keefe said. “Especially this year, that hasn’t always been my mentality. [I’m] just really focusing on getting in there and attacking my pitch, still seeing the ball, but focusing on the strikes.”
With UMass trailing 3-2 with runners on first and second, Keefe dropped a hit into the left-center field gap to clear the bags. The Georgia Tech transfer overran third base after the runs came through, ending the inning as the relay caught her trying to scramble back to safety.
Buffalo tied the game again with a sacrifice fly in the top of the seventh but couldn’t get another score past Hannah Streicher. The junior pitched her seventh straight complete game, earning two wins in the series to bring her season record to 8-9.
“Being behind [Streicher] is incredible,” Keefe said. “These past couple of weeks, she’s just been absolutely killing it on the mound.”
On Tuesday, Streicher held the Bulls to two runs through seven innings, holding strong defensively as the Minutewomen offense chipped in just enough to get the win. Tricky movement on the basepaths in the bottom of the fourth inning scored the winning run for UMass.
With two outs and runners on the corners, Grace Colucci took off from first, pausing in between first and second, while Lily Woodworth dashed home from across the diamond. Bella Smithson had already thrown down to second by the time she realized Woodworth was coming home, allowing the second baseman to score before Colucci got caught in the manufactured rundown.
The Minutewomen controlled the lead from the first frame until the end of the game, starting the scoring with more baserunning high jinks. Keefe led off second with two outs in the bottom of the first when Lillie Scheivert came to the plate. The third baseman fired a ground ball through the left side of the infield, leading to a late advancement from Keefe.
As UMass’ right fielder rounded third, Buffalo left fielder Emily Gorman fired home, catching Keefe in a rundown. Bulls backstop Smithson fired back to third base as soon as Keefe turned around, then received the ball back as the Minutewomen’s leadoff batter slipped on the loose clay in an attempt to score. Keefe recovered and dove home, dislodging the ball from Smithson’s mitt while slapping the plate to put UMass ahead.
Scheivert collected her second RBI of the day double in the third, missing a home run by mere inches. The Delaware transfer smoked a pitch in the middle of the zone to the left-center field gap, nailing the top of the outfield wall with the blast. This drove in Odyssey Torres from first after she dribbled a single into left in the preceding at-bat.
The first game of the Wednesday doubleheader, the 2 p.m. start, was the only game of the series where the Minutewomen never established a lead. Smithson led Buffalo in a 21-4 offensive onslaught, going 4-of-4 at the plate and collecting seven RBIs while scoring four runs herself.
This powerful bat put UMass starter Olivia Cutuli out of rhythm from the jump. Smithson launched the first of her two homers on Wednesday as the third batter of the game, clubbing a Cutuli pitch deep over the centerfield bleachers to score three runs.
In the top of the sixth, Smithson walloped a grand slam out of Sortino Field and into the surrounding parking lot to stamp a 10-run inning for the Bulls. The Minutewomen’s final at-bats were futile as their only chance of extending the game was to cut a 17-run lead down to seven.
UMass’ only scoring came in a four-run third inning, at which point it already trailed 7-0.
“We kind of got our teeth kicked in,” Head Coach Danielle Henderson said. “We just had to let it go, pretend it didn’t happen because [the second game of the day] was starting at 0-0 regardless.”
This series concludes the Minutewomen’s first home stand of the season as they now take to the road against Central Michigan.
UMass travels to Mount Pleasant, MI, for a doubleheader on Saturday, with both times still to be determined, then finish the series with a game at noon on Sunday, April 12.
Tym Brown can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @tym_brown1.
