Softball Shocks Farmingdale with True “Walk-Off" Win

Purchase, N.Y. – The #4 St. Joseph's College softball team made an astounding comeback in game three of the Skyline Conference Tournament via a four-run bottom of the seventh inning to beat #2 Farmingdale State, 7-6, and advance into Sunday's championship game. 

The Golden Eagles trailing 6-3 entering the last inning, scored the winning run as Casey Thomas walked with bases loaded to bring home Julianne Tierney.  To start the final inning, Gina Moscatelli led off with a single, Samantha Carcano reached on a shortstop error and then Julia De Carmine walked to load the bases for the first time of the seventh.  Tierney then singled driving home both Carcano and Moscatelli to bring the deficit to 6-5.   A Nicole Reda walk followed by another by Mallory McClafferty, plated De Carmine and tied the game at 6-6.  Thomas then worked the final walk for the victory as the Eagles put up four runs on only two hits and registering no outs in the final stanza.

Earlier in the contest, St. Joseph's had jumped out in front in the bottom of the first as second baseman Julia De Carmine hit a two-run homer following a Carcano single.  De Carmine (11-3) would later relieve starting pitcher Cassie Martinez and pitch the final three innings, allowing one unearned run, for the win.

Farmingdale jumped on Martinez for four runs on four hits and one Eagles error, in the fourth to lead 4-2.  St. Joseph's crept back within a run in the bottom of the inning thanks to a McClafferty homer.

The Rams added a run in both the fifth and seventh to post what should have been some insurance runs for a 6-3 lead with three outs to go to seal the win.

St. Joseph's will face either Farmingdale again on Sunday or the #3 Sage Gators, whom the Eagles dropped two games to in the regular season.  The Golden Eagles though, have a leg-up as they do not have any losses thus far in the double-elimination tournament.  Both the Rams and Gators will come into the game with one loss and their backs against the wall as they will need to defeat St. Joseph's in back-to-back games beginning at 11 a.m.

NYU-Poly, the top-seed coming into the tournament, was eliminated earlier in game four by the Gators, who handed them their second loss in two days - the first being 5-3 against the Eagles on Friday afternoon.

The winner of the Skyline Conference Tournament will earn the league's automatic qualifier for the NCAA Division III Softball Championship scheduled for May 9-12.  The Golden Eagles last made the NCAA tournament in the 2008 season.