Ewing, NJ... The College of New Jersey softball team remained in a three-way tie for the top spot in the New Jersey Athletic Conference as the Lions swept a doubleheader from Kean University at Dr. June Walker Field on Saturday.
 
In the opening game, the hosts won 2-1 in eight innings and then completed the sweep with a 4-2 victory in the second contest.
 
The win put 23^rd-ranked TCNJ at 6-0 in conference play as they joined top-ranked Montclair State University and 17^th-ranked Rowan University in first-place tie. Overall, TCNJ is 19-5. The two losses dropped the Cougars to 2-4 in league play and 14-10 overall.
 
Both teams continue conference play next week, with the Lions hosting Rutgers University-Camden on Tuesday, April 9, while the Cougars return home to take on Rutgers-Newark on the same day.
 
Game 1
TCNJ 2, Kean University 1 (8 innings)
Senior Michelle Casale (Middlesex, NJ/Middlesex) hit a walk-off triple to right center scoring senior Liz Huttner (Princeton Junction, NJ/West Windsor-Plainsboro South) as the Lions scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth innings to rally for a 2-1 win in the opener.
 
TCNJ tied the game at 1-1 when Huttner reached on an error that allowed junior Kristen Lake (Whitehouse Station, NJ/Hunterdon Central) to race home from third.
 
Those runs came after Kean plated a run in the top half of the inning when Kelly Moorehead (Hicksville, NY/Hicksville) scored on a run-scoring single by Courtney Melchionna (Linder, NJ/Linden).
 
Both teams started the eighth inning with a runner on second base with the international tiebreaker rule.
 
Prior to going into extra innings, the game was dominated by TCNJ pitcher Ashtin Helmer (Succasunna, NJ/Roxbury) and Kean's Courtney Yard (Stockton, NJ/Hunterdon Central).
 
Helmer earned the win to move to 10-0 on the season, as she allowed only two hits and an unearned run with nine strikeouts. The run scored in the last inning by the Cougars snapped her scoreless inning streak at 33.1.
 
Yard yielded just those two unearned runs in the eighth and gave up six hits with six strikeouts.
 
Senior Kelly Hommen (Ridgewood, NJ/Ridgewood) and Lake each finished with two hits in the win.
 
Game 2
TCNJ 4, Kean University 2
TCNJ started the second game with a bang as Hommen laced a two-run homer to right field in the bottom of the first inning staking the hosts out to a 2-0 lead.
 
The Cougars cut that score in half an inning later thanks to a RBI single from Melchionna that scored pinch-runner Cat Riechers (Clark, NJ/Arthur L. Johnson).
 
The hosts put another two runs on the board in the last of the third when Lake doubled into the gap in right that plated Huttner and Hommen, extending TCNJ's margin to 4-1.
 
The Cougars made things interesting in the seventh getting to within 4-2 when Sandra Binkiewicz (Belleville, NJ/Belleville) singled up the middle, but TCNJ's Alex Carisone (Branchburg, NJ/Rutgers Prep) came in and recorded the final two outs to pick up her first save of the season.
 
Helmer earned her 11^th win of the season, throwing 4.1 innings of relief.