CLEARWATER, FL - Toledo's softball team played its third extra inning contest of the season but came up just short, falling 3-2 to Robert Morris in eight innings Saturday. The Rockets also dropped a 9-5 decision to Saint Joseph's later in the day.

After falling behind 1-0 to Robert Morris, the Rockets answered with a tally in the third. Freshman CF Audrey Harner doubled to lead off the inning, went to third on classmate McKenna Smith's single, and came in to score on senior SS Lacey LeVier's RBI basehit to right.

A solo home run by the Colonials in the fourth put Robert Morris back in front, and the score remained the same until the top of seventh. Needing a run to tie it, sophomore Brooke Gates delivered, blasting her first home run of the season to knot the score at two.

However, the Rockets would not get a hit the rest of the seventh nor in their half of the eighth, and Robert Morris pushed across the game-winning run in the bottom of the eighth with a two-out RBI single.

Senior P Hannah Rockhold suffered the loss for Toledo, working 7.2 and allowing just two earned runs on seven hits.

In game two, junior 2B Sam Toy scored three times and senior C Mica Sanchez and sophomore 1B Jillian Spink recorded two hits each, but it wasn't enough as Saint Joseph's pounded out eight of its nine runs in the middle three innings.

In the third, Toy doubled up the middle to plate Sanchez, and Gates followed with a double of her own to score Toy as Toledo built a 2-1 lead.

The Hawks responded with five straight runs in the fourth and fifth innings. Toledo trimmed its deficit to 6-4 after Sanchez and Spink recorded RBI singles in the bottom of the fifth, but Saint Joseph's came back with three more runs in the top of the sixth to put the game away.

Junior CF Kate Ricchio also had an RBI single for the Rockets in the setback.

Toledo (1-8) concludes play at the Under Armour Invitational with a 1:30 p.m. contest against Temple on Sunday.

Contact: Scott Miles
scot.miles@utoledo.edu