SALISBURY, Md. – The TCNJ softball team dropped a pair of games to nationally ranked opponents on the final day of the Margie Knight Classic at Salisbury.
 
TCNJ lost a tight 3-1 contest to No. 20 Tufts in Sunday's opener before suffering a 9-1 setback in six innings to the 13^th-ranked Sea Gulls.
 
Kaci Neveling and Olivia Santos each had three hits on the day for the Lions (5-7), while Maya Knasiak threw a complete game in the opener.
 
Game 1: #20 Tufts 3, TCNJ 1
The Jumbos (3-6) broke a scoreless stalemate with a run in the top of the third after a sequence of three hits in a row, then tacked on two more in the fifth behind a run-scoring double and a sacrifice fly.
 
Held to one hit in the first five frames, TCNJ got the bats going in the bottom of the sixth. Gianna Vazquez led off the inning with a single and went to second on Neveling's sacrifice. Santos and Julia Kinnally followed with back-to-back singles, Kinnally's knock plating pinch-runner Jules Fuchs with the blue and gold's first run. But Tufts pulled its starter, and Sophia DiCocco came on to strike out the next two batters, as well as two more in the seventh, to close it out.
 
Mckayla Yard had a seventh-inning double for TCNJ, while Knasiak allowed three runs on seven hits in her complete-game effort, striking out three without a walk.
 
Game 2: #13 Salisbury 9, TCNJ 1
Salisbury went deep twice in the first three innings, opening up a 4-0 advantage on a three-run shot by Chelsea Jacoby in the bottom of the third.
 
TCNJ scored its lone run on Neveling's two-out RBI double in the fifth, which plated pinch-runner Olivia Gist.
 
The Sea Gulls (11-1) ended it with five runs in the bottom of the sixth.
 
Neveling and Santos each went 2-for-3, and Kinnally, Sara Vincent, and Camryn Kitchin tallied one hit apiece.
 
Sairah Llano pitched two scoreless innings of relief, working around two hits and a pair of walks.
 
UP NEXT

• TCNJ takes on Drew in its home opener on Wednesday