Game 1 Box Score (Trinity 7, Bates 1)

Game 2 Box Score (Trinity 9, Bates 6)

Stacia Saniuk '09 belted two home runs on the day, for a team-leading total of seven this season.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Junior LHP Sara Dougherty (Long Valley, N.J.) tossed a two-hitter with five strikeouts and no earned runs and homered at the plate with four RBI in the first game, and earned the win in the circle with six innings of relief work in the second game to lead the Trinity College Bantams to a doubleheader sweep against the visiting Bates College Bobcats in New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) East Division softball action this afternoon.  Trinity took the first game 7-1, and won the second game 9-6.

Bates (15-13, 4-4 NESCAC East) needed a win to secure a spot in the four-team NESCAC Championship. The Bobcats will play a doubleheader at Wesleyan University on Sunday.

Trinity ends the regular season with a 22-8 overall record, setting a new college record for wins, and a 4-4 mark in the NESCAC East.  The Bantams qualified for the NESCAC Championship Tournament and will play a first-round game at tournament host and NESCAC West Division Champion Williams College on Friday.  The tourney is a four-team, double-elimination affair over three days at Williams.

In the first game, Bates struck first with an unearned run on a double by junior OF Katie Franklin (New Preston, Conn.) and a sacrifice fly by first-year C Stacia Saniuk (Sharon, Mass.) in the top of the fourth inning. Trinity answered quickly, scoring once in the bottom of the fourth on an RBI double by sophomore OF Beth Gostanian (Windham, N.H.) and four times in the fifth frame, including a three-run home run by Dougherty. The Bantams added two insurance runs in the sixth inning on a solo blast by junior SS Stacy Hills (Menlo Park, Calif.) and a Bates fielding error. Bates junior RHP Kristin Masino (North Arlington, N.J.) went the distance in a losing cause, allowing 10 hits and fanning three.

In the nightcap, the Bobcats scored two runs in the opening inning on a two-run homer by Saniuk.  Dougherty returned to the mound in the second frame in place of senior tri-captain Victoria Moshier (Old Saybrook, Conn.) and held the Bobcats to just one run over the next five innings.  Dougherty also tripled in the third inning off of Bates first-year starter Christina Knobel (Walpole, Mass.), scoring senior tri-captain C Lindsey Freeman (Lancaster, Mass.) to tie the game at 1-1, but the Bobcats took back the lead on a solo homer by sophomore 1B Beth Lakin (Tacoma, Wash.) in the fourth inning, Lakin's first.

The Bantams broke the game open with a five-run bottom of the fourth, including three runs on a two-out, opposite-field bomb by Freeman that turned a 3-3 tie into a 6-3 Bantam lead.  Trinity added three runs in the sixth frame on a two-run home run by freshman 1B Ariana Mullin (Woodbridge, Conn.) and an RBI double by sophomore Laura Cutler (Concord, Mass.), but Bates pulled within three runs at 9-6 on a three-run four-bagger by Saniuk in the top of the seventh.  Dougherty struck out the next batter and retired two of the next three to secure the victory for Trinity, finishing with 13 innings pitched in the doubleheader with nine strikeouts.