Resiliency was the theme of the day for the St. John’s softball team when it hosted Seton Hall in its Big East opener on Saturday.
The Red Storm rallied in the seventh inning of both games of its double header to beat the Pirates, 5-4 and 7-6, respectively.
“Anytime you can come out of a day with two Big East wins is great,” said head coach Amy Kvilhaug. “Our offense was the champ today and our freshman pitchers learned a lot of valuable lessons. This team never gives up. Our energy is what helped us rally. Roxy [Struble] had a great day for us [and] she showed her leadership and really helped us.”
In the first game, with the Red Storm down 4-2 going into the seventh inning, Alyson Funn stepped up and turned things around with a blast over the second basemen’s head to score Struble for the winning run. Funn went 3-4, including a triple and two RBIs, while Struble went 2-4 with one RBI.
Freshman ace Kat Lawrence struck out nine from the mound for the Red Storm.
The second game of the day quickly became the Struble and Kacee Cox show.
The duo went a combined 5-6 against the Pirates and each had a homerun. Cox, a freshman third baseman, hit a solo home run in the bottom of the third to cut the Seton Hall lead to two.
Trailing by three runs and going into the seventh inning, Struble was clutch for the Red Storm and blasted a homerun to score her and Cox. Down by one, sophomore centerfielder Shauntaine Harris sent a ball over the third baseman’s head to score fellow sophomore, catcher Brandy Reyes. Freshman rightfielder Chelsea Durning ended the game on a hard hit to the Seton Hall second baseman that scored senior shortstop Danielle Estrada.
Cox finished the day with three hits, four runs, a double, a home run and three RBIs while Struble finished the day with five hits, two runs, a double, a home run, three RBIs, and a stolen base.
Struble cited her teammates as the reason for both rallies.
“I feed off my teammate’s energy and after rallying to win the first game, we knew we could do it for the second game,” she said.
Freshman hurler Linzee Sumrall picked up her fourth win of the season with two strikeouts for the Red Storm, who will face Fairfield in their next match-up.
