St. John's University Athletics
Photo by: Stephen Galvin/St. Johns Athletics
St. John’s Drops Games against UMBC and Morgan State
3/5/2022 6:57:00 PM | Softball
Red Storm will play rematches against Retrievers and Bears on Sunday
BALTIMORE (March 5, 2022) – The St. John's softball team dropped a pair of decisions during the first day of the Retriever Round Robin on Saturday, falling to UMBC, 2-0, in the opener before suffering a 1-0 loss to Morgan State.
Game One
UMBC pitcher Kya Matter fanned 17 St. John's batters over 7.0 scoreless innings, leading the Retrievers to a 2-0 win.
Hannah Mearns was tagged with the loss for St. John's despite scattering just four hits and one earned run over 6.0 frames of work.
Amy Mallah and Anna Freveletti both went 1-for-3 with a single.
St. John's threatened in the top of the first, as Natalie Santos and Peyton Cody reached on errors before advancing on a passed ball, putting a pair of Red Storm runners into scoring position with two outs. Matter, however, fanned her third batter of the inning to keep St. John's off the board.
After St. John's left another runner on base in the top of the second, Anna Lonchar launched a home run for UMBC to give the Retrievers a 1-0 lead in the home half of the frame.
Neither team managed a run until the sixth inning, when UMBC pushed its lead to a pair. After Mearns worked back-to-back groundouts to start the frame, Courtney Coppersmith reached on a fielding error and advanced to second before scoring on a Macy Granzow single.
Game Two
Morgan State needed only an RBI single in the fourth inning to top the Johnnies, 1-0, in the Red Storm's second game of the day on Saturday.
Cody, Meisha Murray and Natalie Alheidt each went 1-for-3 at the plate.
Erin Brown came out on the wrong end of the decision despite allowing only one run in 6.0 innings pitched.
Morgan State's Anaya Hunte three-hit the Johnnies and notched seven strikeouts across seven scoreless innings.
Morgan State threatened first in the bottom of the second, loading the bases with two outs before Brown escaped the jam with a swinging K.
Brown stranded another Morgan State runner 60 feet from home in the bottom of the third before the Bears broke through in the fourth, using four base knocks to push across the game's only run.
After leaving a runner on base in the fifth and sixth innings, the Red Storm loaded the bases in the top of the seventh, but could not push across the game-tying run. Alheidt started the rally with a one-out base knock before Camryn Steele drew a two-out walk and Murray legged out an infield single to juice the bags. Santos put solid contact on a ball in the game's final at-bat, but it was snagged by the Morgan State second baseman to end the game.
St. John's will play Morgan State and UMBC again on Sunday starting at 10 a.m.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Kya Matter (3-1)
L: Mearns, Hannah (1-6)

Batting:
SH: Alheidt, Natalie 1

Batting:
2B: Macy Granzow 1
HR: Anna Lonchar 1
RBI: Macy Granzow 1 ; Anna Lonchar 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Courtney Coppersmith 1 ; Anna Lonchar 1
CS: Courtney Coppersmith 1
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