Mahwah, NJ… The College of New Jersey softball team dropped both games in a doubleheader at Ramapo College on Saturday now looks to bounce back in the conference tournament.
 
The hosts won the opening game 7-3 and then held off the Lions 5-2 in the second.
 
TCNJ (19-10) finished the regular season in fourth place in the New Jersey Athletic Conference with a 12-6 league record. The two wins allowed the Roadrunners (24-11-1, 13-4-1 NJAC) to move into second place, while William Paterson University (26-9-1, 13-5 NJAC) moved into third place.
 
The opening round of the tournament is Tuesday, April 28 at 4 p.m. and the TCNJ will be at William Paterson. The Pioneers are riding a 13-game winning streak, but the Lions swept them in Wayne, NJ earlier this season. Both of those wins came by identical 3-0 scores.
 
Rowan is the top seed in the tournament and will host weekend portion of the tournament on May 1-3.
 
Game 1
Ramapo College 7, The College of New Jersey 3
The Roadrunners scored four unearned in the bottom of the first inning and maintained that advantage throughout the opening game to come away with the win.
 
After getting those four runs, Ramapo added two more in the fifth before the Lions broke through for a pair of runs an inning later.
 
Junior Deanna Utter (Byram, NJ/Lenape Valley) blasted a two-run homer in the sixth to score junior Christine Desiderio (Babylon, NY/Babylon). The home run was her team-leading sixth of the season.
 
The Roadrunners got one of those runs back in their half of the inning, but the Lions capped the scoring with a run in the seventh. Pinch-hitter Colleen Phelan (Tinton Falls, NJ/Monmouth Regional) doubled with one out, moved to third on a base hit by freshman Madison Levine (Oakland, NJ/Indian Hills), before scoring on a fielder's choice by Nerylix Cerda (North Bergen, NJ/High Tech) to make the final 7-3.
 
Utter finished the game going 2-for-3 with two RBI.
 
Game 2
Ramapo College 5, The College of New Jersey 2
The teams traded two-run innings early one with Ramapo again taking the early lead. The Roadrunners scored twice in the second to jump in front.
 
The Lions quickly tied the game in the third with freshman Bria Bartsch (Montville, NJ/Mt. St. Dominic Academy) hitting her hitting her first collegiate home run when she led off the inning. Freshman Jess Stevenson (Belmar, NJ/Red Bank Regional) produced the equalizer when she singled in Utter, knotting the game at 2-2.
 
Ramapo scored the deciding run in the bottom of the fourth when Nicole Hernandez hit a solo home to left to make it a 3-2 game.
 
The hosts then added two insurance runs in the sixth to finish off the scoring.
 
Levine finished with two hits for the Lions, with one of them being a double.