QUEENS, N.Y. ? The Monmouth University softball team, seeded fourth, gave top-seed Long Island all it could handle in an elimination game in the 2009 Northeast Conference Tournament, falling 8-6 on Saturday afternoon at Red Storm Field on the campus of St. John's University. The Hawks trailed 7-0 after the second frame before almost completing their second comeback of the weekend against the defending champion Blackbirds.
Long Island loaded the bases with one out in the top of the first frame and struck for three runs on four hits off of MU starter Melissa Mehrer (Florence, N.J./Florence Township). The Blackbirds struck for another run when Bianca Mejia drove in Stephanie Savre in the second inning, and LIU loaded the bases for the second time in as many innings two batters later. The top-seeded squad would end up adding four runs in the frame as the Hawks committed three errors in the second.
The Hawks put runners on the corners with one out in the bottom of the third after Lee Simonetti (Poughkeepsie, N.Y./Our Lady of Lourdes) walked and Alexa Ferrara (West Caldwell, N.J./James Caldwell) singled. Junior Jessica Nicola (South Amboy, N.J./Sayreville War Memorial) came up one batter later and hit her second home run of the tournament, this one a three-run shot over the left field fence, to cut Long Island's lead to 7-3.
With the Blackbirds still holding a four-run lead, sophomore Abby Martin (Oswego, N.Y./Oswego) drilled her first career home run to left, driving in Nicola who had singled to lead off the frame, to cut the lead to 7-5 in the bottom of the sixth.
LIU added an insurance run in the top of the seventh to go up 8-5, but Nicola continued her hot-hitting with a RBI single up the middle in the bottom of the inning, plating Emily deLong (Rothschild, Wisc./DC Everest) to cut the lead to two runs.
Senior Nichole Alvarez (Brick, N.J./Brick Township) and Nicola each earned All-Tournament Team accolades for their respective performances at the NEC Championships. Alvarez ended her Monmouth career in grand fashion, batting .545 (6-for-11) in the three tournament games with two runs scores and two RBI. She also had one of the top defensive plays of the tournament when she completed a double play in MU's 5-3 upset over top-seeded Long Island in the first game of the weekend. Nicola batted .500 (5-for-10) with three runs scored, two home runs and a team-high five runs driven in during the three games. She slugged 1.100% at the tournament, and neither player committed an error in the field over the three-game span.
Martin and Ferrara each batted .400 at the tournament, with the sophomore from upstate New York adding her first career home run and four RBI.
Monmouth ends the season with a 26-18-1 overall record and falls just short of the league postseason championship round for the second time in the last three years.
