Clermont, FL... The opening day of the 2014 softball season proved to a tough one for The College of New Jersey as the Lions dropped a pair of games in Florida on Saturday.
 
TCNJ (0-2) started its spring trip with a 10-3 setback against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then fell to Manhattanville College by the score of 8-7.
 
The Lions will be right back on the field for a single game on Sunday, facing the United States Coast Guard Academy at 9 a.m.
 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 10, TCNJ 3
Miscues proved costly for the Lions in their season opener as the Engineers scored eight unearned runs to get the win.
 
TCNJ got off to a good start scoring the initial run of the season in their first trip to the plate. Senior Lindsay Williams (Roxbury, NJ/Roxbury) led off with a single in the bottom of the first inning and later touched home plate on a RPI error.
 
The Engineers plated three runs in the third, but the Lions got one of them back in the third when freshman Jessica Kennick (Middlesex, NJ/Middlesex) got things going with a double. After pinch-runner Nery Cerda (North Bergen, NJ/High Tech) took over at second, she later came around to score on another RPI error.
 
The Engineers then scored six times in the fifth inning to pull away and take a 9-2 lead.
 
The teams traded runs in the seventh with TCNJ scoring its final run when Williams started the inning with a single and later scored on another base hit by sophomore Jamie Purcell (Nutley, NJ/Mount St. Dominic Academy).
 
Williams finished with two hits, while Kennick and sophomore Deanna Utter (Byram, NJ/Lenape Valley) each doubled.
 
Manhattanville College 8, TCNJ 7
Manhattanville's Dolores Diemicke  (North Massapequa, NY/Plainedge) hit a walk-off three-run double with two outs as the Valiants rallied for an 8-7 win over the Lions.
 
The Lions led 7-5 heading into the final half of an inning, but Diemicke cleared the bases with the winning hit that gave Manhattanville its only lead of the game.
 
The Lions again jumped out to the advantage scoring in the first inning, this time plating a pair of runs. Williams doubled to open the inning and later scored on an error. Sophomore Christine Desiderio (Babylon, NY/Babylon), who reached on the miscue that allowed Williams to score, followed her a couple of batters later on another Manhattanville error.
 
The Valiants got on run back in the third, but TCNJ scored in the fourth to make it a 3-1 game. Williams was again the catalyst with a RBI triple, which scored Jackie Oran (Lexington, MA/Lexington) from second base.
 
After Manhattanville closed to within a run in their half of the fourth, the Lions plated two more in the fifth extending the difference to 5-2. The first of those came when senior Kristen Lake (Whitehouse Station, NJ/Hunterdon Central) scored on a single by Purcell and Utter drove in the second with a fielder's choice that saw Cerda touch the plate.
 
The teams continued to exchange runs with the Valiants making it 5-3 in the fifth with the Lions scoring in the next inning. This time Lake produced a RBI double to score Desiderio.
 
Manhattanville countered with two in the last of the sixth only to have the Lions score for the fifth straight inning in the seventh. This run came when freshman Colleen Phelan (Tinton Falls, NJ/Monmouth Regional) picked up her first collegiate hit with a RBI double scoring Utter to make it a 7-5 contest.
 
Lake and Williams each paced TCNJ at the plate with three hits each, while Utter had two hits and drove in a pair of runs.