Chiaramonte Tosses Eighth Shutout in Split With Mount St. Vincent

CORTLANDT MANOR, NY – The St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) softball team bounced back from their slim one-run losses to Old Westbury on Tuesday evening, shutting out another Skyline Conference foe Mount Saint Vincent 3-0, but fell 7-5 in the nightcap after some costly errors put the Lady Bears in a deficit they couldn't recover from.

The Lady Bears split a doubleheader for the first time this season and improve to 16-8 while the Dolphins, former Hudson Valley Women's Athletic Conference rivals, move to 8-25.

Senior Alyson Chiaramonte (Staten Island/Moore Catholic ) tossed her eighth shutout of the season in the opener, improved to 11-5 in the circle, striking out seven and allowing only three hits.  Entering the week, Chiaramonte was tied for third in Division III in shutouts, trailing the leaders by one.

St. Joseph's drew first blood posting a solo run in the first with Chiaramonte helping her own cause with a triple down the left field line that plated Lisa Scheer (Bayside, NY/Mary Louis).

The Lady Bears took a 2-0 lead the next inning on a Jackie Perillo (Howard Beach, NY/Archbishop Molloy) single, plating Danielle Marino (Maspeth, NY/Mary Louis).  Perillo would rap another single in the fourth, finishing with a pair of multi-hit games to lead the Lady Bears with four hits for the twinbill.

The two-run lead was more than enough for Chiaramonte who was dominant all night, retiring the first 10 batters before allowing her first hit in the fourth.  After the Lady Bears tacked on another run in the fifth, the Dolphins assembled their first threat in the bottom half moving a runner to scoring position, but Chiaramonte shut the door with a pair of strikeouts.

The Dolphins moved a runner again to third in the final frame, threatening to spoil the shutout, but Chiaramonte struck out the final batter to preserve the win.  Kathleen Davis suffered the loss for the Doplhins (5-22), allowing three runs (one earned) and striking out 11.

St. Joseph's got to a quick start in the finale, Perillo and Mabel Vargas (Ridgewood, NY/Mary Louis) leading off with singles and Scheer reaching on an error to load the bases, and Caitlyn Kakavas (Bayside, NY/St. Agnes) delivered with a one-out, bases-clearing double.  Kakavas scored on a grounder to cap a four-run frame.

But the lead would be short-lived, as the Dolphins would respond with seven runs in the bottom half of the inning, aided by two Lady Bears miscues causing six runs to come unearned to starter Scheer who took the loss, falling to 5-4. Casey Leake did most of the damage with a bases-loaded, two-RBI single that tied the game at 4-4 and three more runs came in on a pair of errors that could have ended the inning.

The Lady Bears would get one more run back in their next at bat to cut the deficit to 7-5. Marino drew a walk, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on a Vargas two-out single.

But that would be all the scoring for the remainder of the contest.  Chiaramonte entered in the relief in the bottom of the second and shut down the Dolphins for five near perfect innings, fanning nine in the process. Her only baserunner reached on an error and was caught stealing by Kakavas. 

However, Courtney Keane settled in for the Dolphins as well, limiting the Lady Bears to just two more hits over the final five innings to earn her fourth win of the season. 

St. Joseph's returns to action on April 22nd for Sunday road matinee against Albertus Magnus College starting at 1 p.m.