Game One Box Score
Game Two Box Score
Photo Gallery
RIVERDALE, NY – Nicole Williams (Ansonia, CT) has flirted with a no-hitter a few times this season. On Wednesday afternoon, she finished the job. Williams tossed the first no-hitter in Manhattan College softball program history, as the Jaspers (20-10, 7-1 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) notched a 6-0 victory over Saint Peter's (2-22, 1-9 MAAC) in the second game of a doubleheader at Gaelic Park. Manhattan swept the twinbill, taking game one by a 5-0 count.
Williams (5-3) was perfect until issuing a leadoff walk in the sixth. The only other Peacock base runner came on a one-out walk in the seventh, but she struck out the final two Saint Peter's hitters to complete the gem. Williams finished with 14 strikeouts, including the last five outs of the game, and didn't let the Peacocks hit the ball out of the infield all afternoon.
“I don't think it was that different than any other game,” Williams said. “I just took it one pitch at a time, and I knew I had my defense behind me to back me up.”
She got all the offense she needed in the bottom of the first, when Manhattan put five runs on the board. Shannon Puthe (Mullica Hill, NJ) led off with a triple to center field and scored on Alexa Dawid's (Milford, CT) double to left. After Dawid scored on an error, the Jaspers added another run when Dominique Palagruto (Sewell, NJ) was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Stephanie Reinhardt (Albany, NY) followed with an RBI single to right, then Manhattan made it 5-0 when Briana Matazinsky (Valley Falls, NY) got in under the tag when Saint Peter's went for the double play on Victoria Ross's (Bloomfield, NJ) grounder to third.
Manhattan added another run in the third when Christine Gebhardt (Middletown, NJ) drew a bases loaded walk. The Jaspers had the chance to give Williams a walk-off perfect game after loading the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the fifth, but a pair of strikeouts and a pickoff at third ended the threat.
Dawid was the offensive hero for the Jaspers, going 2-for-2 with a double, a run scored and an RBI. Palagruto, meanwhile, finished 1-for-3 with a run scored and an RBI. As a team, Manhattan belted out eight hits in game two.
Crystal Carlucci (1-6), who drew the walk that broke up the perfect game, started in the circle for Saint Peter's and took the loss. She allowed five runs on three hits and a walk in 0.1 innings. Sydney Ramsey tossed 2.2 innings of relief, yielding one run on three hits while walking three. Tiffani Lambert gave up two hits, walked one and struck out two in three shutout innings.
In game one, Matazinsky (11-3) was nearly as brilliant as her teammate. She scattered six hits and walked one in the 5-0 shutout. Matazinsky struck out six, as Saint Peter's didn't get a runner past second base. After an infield single with one out in the seventh, she induced a bouncer back to the circle that she turned into a game-ending double play.
Offensively, the Jaspers were held to just three hits, but Manhattan twice scored without benefit of a hit. In the first, Dawid drew a one-out walk, stole second and third, then came across on a Gebhardt sacrifice fly. Manhattan got a run without a hit again in the fourth on a heads-up base running play by Matazinsky, who scored from second on a Reinhardt sacrifice bunt.
The Jaspers also picked up a run in the second inning when Reinhardt lifted a sacrifice fly after Kat Prevo (San Diego, CA) tripled off the top of the wall in left center. Manhattan also plated two in the sixth on a Matazinsky RBI single and a Prevo sacrifice fly.
Lauren Pitney's (Ansonia, CT) third-inning double was the Jaspers' only other hit in game one. Matazinsky and Prevo each scored a run and drove in another.
Sydney Ramsey had two hits in the contest for the Peacocks. Alyssa Ruiz (0-4) tossed a complete game in the circle, allowing five runs (four earned) on three hits and six walks while also picking up a strikeout.