Syracuse sweeps doubleheader vs. Colgate with 1-0, 6-0 wins
The Orange won the first game 1-0 before running up the score in the second context 6-0. Charlie Hynes | Staff Photographer
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In Sunday’s loss to Boston College, Syracuse pitchers delivered 132 pitches to 35 batters. Across nine innings last Saturday, they threw 148 pitches to 40 batters (a seven-inning average of 115 pitches and 31 batters). Friday, it was 152 pitches to 33 batters. Of that count, starter Julianna Verni threw 134 and faced 29 herself.
The Orange’s pitchers had a reprieve from Atlantic Coast Conference play and heavy workload Wednesday. Syracuse (16-17, 3-10 ACC) twice shut out Colgate (20-23, 7-5 Patriot), winning 1-0 in the afternoon and 6-0 in the evening to sweep the doubleheader.
In both games, and Verni and Madison Knight were ruthlessly efficient. The latter got the nod to start the first leg of Wednesday’s doubleheader and went the distance with 96 pitches.
Knight limited the Raiders to just 26 plate appearances, only allowing more than four in any inning once. She didn’t issue a single walk and only reached a three-ball count four times en route to a season-high nine strikeouts and SU’s first win.
Verni also only once allowed more than four Raiders hitters to step to the plate in a single inning. Through four innings she was perfect, facing and sitting down 12 consecutive batters to start the second leg of the doubleheader before walking Colgate catcher Lily Haluska to lead off the top of the fifth inning.
Moreover, Verni carried a no-hit bid into the seventh and final frame. She held the Raiders hitless for 6.1 sparkling innings before second baseman Marina Taveras smoked a grounder down the third base line for an infield single. She finished the game with 77 pitches and 24 batters faced.
Like Knight, Verni filled the zone and gave Colgate batters fits trying to barrel up her stuff. Five of her six strikeouts were swinging. 54 of her 77 pitches total were either fanned on, fouled off or called for strikes, amounting to a 70.1% strike rate. Knight (67 strikes, a 69.8% rate) came oh so close to joining her with a 70-plus percent strike rate.
Verni’s ability to keep the ball on the infield dirt played into the hands, literally, of Syracuse’s infield, which put together another strong defensive showing.
Both second baseman Lauren Fox, in the first game, and third baseman Kaylee Eubanks, in the second, flashed quick reaction times and athleticism to get to hard-hit balls ticketed for the outfield and shut down any chance of Colgate’s batters stretching them into doubles.
All day, Syracuse’s fielders stole hits from the Raiders’ hitters. Shortstop Jadyn Burney, in the bottom of the seventh inning of the first game, snagged a line drive just before it touched the infield dirt. Knight, playing first base in the second contest, caught two of her own, the first one forcing her to dive. Rose Cano, playing first in the earlier game, nabbed one, too. Kendall Gaunt laid out to scoop a liner in right. Between Knight and Verni’s command of the zone and the clean play of SU’s fielders, Colgate managed to put just eight runners on base across 14 total innings.
Syracuse’s bats, meanwhile, warmed up throughout the day. Knight delivered the game-winning RBI in both contests, grounding into a double play in the bottom of the first inning of the first game before socking a solo home run over the left field wall to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning of the second contest. Both put Syracuse up 1-0. With both herself and Verni spinning shutouts, that was all the Orange needed to collect a couple wins.
Gaunt added insurance later in the fourth inning of Game 2, though, following up a Vanessa Flores walk and Eubanks single with her own three-run shot over the left-center wall. In Syracuse’s final turn up in the bottom of the sixth, it tacked on two more runs courtesy of a Cano double that smacked off the wall in right, scoring Gaunt and Fox.
After securing its first ACC series win all year last weekend over Boston College and sweeping its doubleheader against Colgate, Syracuse finds itself knocking on the door of a position it hasn’t been in since March 21: a .500 record.
