Chiaramonte Hurls Second Straight Perfect Game, Lady Bears Sweep John Jay

BELLEROSE, NY – Senior Alyson Chiaramonte (Staten Island, NY/Moore Catholic) tossed her second straight perfect game leading the St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) softball team to a sweep of John Jay College, 6-0 and 13-9, on Sunday afternoon at Padavan-Preller Field.

The Lady Bears (15-6) extend their win streak to 15, matching a program record set in 2003.

It was the first seven inning perfect game for Chiaramonte (10-3), whose three previous perfect games were five inning affairs, with the most recent one two days ago in a 14-0 victory over Sarah Lawrence.  Chiaramonte was dominant in her seventh shutout of the season, striking out 10 batters and the remaining 11 outs all grounders to the infield.  Chiaramonte also had a productive day at the plate accumulating five hits, two RBI, three runs, three doubles and scoring her 100th career run. 

The freshman combo of Cassandra Molinari (Brooklyn, NY/St. Edmund Prep) and Jackie Perillo (Howard Beach, NY/Archbishop Molloy) paced the way offensively. Molinari went a perfect 6-for-6 over the twinbill with five RBI, five runs and two doubles.  Perillo batted 5-for-7 with four RBI, two runs and a triple.

Junior Mabel Vargas (Ridgewood, NY/Mary Louis) collected four hits on the afternoon and extended her hitting streak to a team-leading 11 games.  Junior Millicia Malvasio (Brooklyn, NY/Bishop Kearney) extended her hitting streak to 10 games with a 2-for-3 game in the opener, but had it snapped in game two.

All the scoring in the opener came in the second and third frames, with the Lady Bears posting three runs in each inning.  In the second, Molinari knocked a single to center and Andrea Sideli (Brooklyn, NY/Bishop Kearney) followed with walk, both advancing to scoring position on a wild pitch.  Emily Palmieri (Staten Island, NY/St. John's Villa) brought home Molinari with a groundout.  Perillo provided the offensive highlight of the game with a triple to the left center gap that scored Sideli, Perillo also scoring on the play on a throwing error.

In the third, the Lady Bears loaded the bases with no outs, Lisa Scheer (Bayside, NY/Mary Louis) drawing a leadoff walk, followed by a Chiaramonte single and a Danielle Marino (Maspeth, NY/Mary Louis) walk.  Molinari rapped a single to left that scored Scheer and nearly Chiaramonte who was thrown out at the plate.  Sideli roped a ball through the right side that scored Marino. Palmieri wrapped up the scoring collecting her second RBI of the game on a groundout that scored Molinari.

Game two provided more excitement for the large crowd who came out to enjoy the beautiful spring day in a high-scoring duel, the most combined runs (22) for a Lady Bear game this season and the Lady Bears knocking a season-high 17 hits for the third time.  St. Joseph's got on the board quickly plating six runs in the first, highlighted by back-to-back-to-back doubles from Scheer, Chiaramonte and Kakavas and another double later in the inning from Molinari.  Scheer would score on Chiaramonte's double, reaching the 100 career run milestone.

John Jay finally put up some runs in the third, despite a beautiful diving play by Marino at second that brought the inning's second out.  Nelly Vega singled home a run and was followed by a three-run home run from Kaylee Fry.

But the Lady Bears got most of the runs back in the bottom half of the inning, also doing the damage with two outs to score three runs pushing their lead back to 9-4.  Perillo singled home Molinari, who knocked her second double of the game two batters prior and Marino brought home Perillo with an infield single that also scored Malvasio who reached on an error.

St. Joseph's tacked on a solo run in the fourth on a Molinari single that brought home Chiaramonte.

John Jay plated two more runs in the fifth off starter Scheer who improved to 5-3 in the circle, allowing six runs on seven hits in five innings of work.

The Lady Bears added three more runs in the sixth and threatened to end the game early having the bases loaded and needing one more tally to reach the run rule, but couldn't bring one across.  Molinari's RBI single started the scoring, capping a 4-for-4 game with a career-high four RBI, three runs, and two doubles.  Fellow freshman Perillo stroked her third RBI single of the game two batters later, also capping a productive day setting new career-highs in hits and RBI.  Megan Moran (Syosset, NY/St. Dominic's) concluded the Lady Bear scoring with a sacrifice fly.

In the seventh inning, the Bloodhounds managed to score three runs off Chiaramonte, who entered in relief in the sixth in a non-save situation, ending her streak of 18 consecutive scoreless innings and 17 consecutive hitless innings.  After loading the bases with no-outs, Fry did most of the damage again with a double to right center that scored two runs finishing a 3-for-4 game with six RBI.

St. Joseph's hits the road for their next five doubleheaders returning to action on Tuesday, April 17th facing Old Westbury at 4 p.m.  Fans unable to make the trip to Long Island can follow the live stats available on www.SJCBears.com.