Bobcats split with Red Flash, look to NEC Tournament

Bobcats split with Red Flash, look to NEC Tournament

By Kevin Noonan, QBSN Staff Writer

Senior Heather Schwartzburg (Mission Viejo, Calif.) ended her regular season career at Quinnipiac University the way she ended the at bats for 956 other batters: with a strikeout.

As Quinnipiac heads into the Northeast Conference tournament, Schwartzburg is only 43 strikeouts short of 1,000 for her career.

She dominated the St. Francis Red Flash (22-26, 9-11 NEC) in the second game of the doubleheader to close the season with a 4-0 victory.  The Bobcats (30-16, 13-7 NEC) lost the first game of the afternoon 3-0 at the hands of Brooke Koch (10-5).  St. Francis started with a strong first inning and never looked back.

Senior Mina Duffy (Piedmont, Calif.) started the game for Quinnipiac and only lasted .1 innings, giving up three runs on two hits with one walk and one strikeout.

Taylor Darnielle singled to deep right field and scored Paige Smith from first base for the first run of the game.  The next batter, Taylor Parsons, stepped up to bat and clubbed her fifth home run of the year, one of three extra base hits on the afternoon to give the Red Flash a 3-0 lead.

Sophomore Katie Alfiere (Beacon Falls, Conn.) came in for the Bobcats and shut down the opponent’s offense for the final 6.2 innings of the game.

Quinnipiac did outhit St. Francis 8-7, but were unable to make a serious threat until the bottom of the seventh. 

Senior Ashley Heiberger (Sioux Falls, S.D.) doubled and junior Bridget Figmic (Stratford, Conn.) singled to put runners on the corners.  Heiberger was then thrown out at home on a suicide squeeze play and junior Jacquie Ristow (Seal Beach, Calif.) grounded out to end the game.

Senior Christy Cabrera (West Sacramento, Calif.) went 2-for-4 in the game with a single and double for the Bobcats.

The second game saw the Bobcats jumped out to an early similar to the fashion of the Red Flash earlier in the afternoon.

Cabrera lead off with a single, subsequently stealing second base and scoring on the two-run home run off the bat of junior Alex Alba (Sylmar, Calif.) for her seventh of the season.

Schwartzburg (18-5) dominated the Red Flash, throwing a two-hitter for the Bobcats while striking out 12 batters on the afternoon.

Quinnipiac added two more runs when Heiberger hit a ground ball to St. Francis first baseman Kaitlin Andler, who made an error, allowing Duffy and freshman Nikki Barba (San Diego, Calif.) to play.

Cabrera, Duffy, and Barba each finished with two hits in the second game of the doubleheader.

The Red Flash threatened to score in the top of the seventh when Taylor Parsons walked for the second time in the game and Andler came inches away from hitting a home run with the ball bouncing off the top of the fence back to Cabrera in center field.  Andler reached second for a double, and Parsons was held at third base. 

Schwartzburg then retired the next hitters, striking out Courtney Francis to end the game.

With the win, Quinnipiac propelled itself into a second place tie with LIU-Brooklyn in the NEC, meaning it will be the home team when battling the Blackbirds in Moon Township, Penn. for the NEC Tournament starting May 11.