GLASSBORO, N.J. – The TCNJ softball team handed No. 2 Rowan its first loss of the season on Tuesday afternoon, using a pair of huge hits by Julia Kinnally and a gutsy pitching performance by Elizabeth Gosse to snag a 5-2 victory and a split of the NJAC doubleheader.
 
Rowan (31-1, 9-1) shut out the Lions, 6-0, in the opener, but the blue and gold battled back to score three times in the fourth inning of Game 2 and Gosse made it stand up, ending the Profs' regular-season winning streak at 38 games. Rowan had not lost since a 3-2 setback to TCNJ 364 days prior and was the last remaining unbeaten in any division of collegiate softball.
 
TCNJ did its dame in Game 2 against Profs ace Emily McCutcheon, who came in leading all of Division III with a 0.32 ERA.

The win kept the Lions (17-13, 9-3) in second place in the NJAC standings with three league twin bills remaining on the regular-season slate. 
 
Game 1: Rowan 6, TCNJ 0
All of the runs in the opener came in the opening inning, as Maya Knasiak fell victim to a tight strike zone and some well-place hits by the hosts.
 
The first eight batters reached base for the Profs, four of them coming on walks as the umpire continued to deny some of Knasiak's close pitches. Three of the first four hitters drew walks on 3-2 pitches, the last of which forced home the game's first run.
 
Breanna Bryant followed with an RBI single, and a two-run single by Alyson Reim extended the lead to 4-0. Another bases-loaded free pass and an RBI fielder's choice added to the tally, and by the time the dust settled the Profs had sent 11 to the plate and scored six times.
 
TCNJ's best chance at a comeback came in the very next inning. Sara Vincent led off the first of her three singles in Game 1, and Mckayla Yard sent her to third with a booming double off the fence in left. Knasiak was hit by a pitch to load the bags with no outs, but Rylee Lutz worked out of the jam with a force play at home, an infield pop-up, and a sinking liner off the bat of Olivia Santos that fell into the glove of the left fielder just past the cut of the grass.
 
Knasiak worked into the fourth without further damage, and Julia Roessler struck out three against a pair of hits in 2.1 scoreless innings of relief.
 
Lutz improved to 13-0 with a 5-hit shutout, striking out two and walking one.
 
Vincent was 3-for-3 for the Lions in the opener.
 
Game 2: TCNJ 3, Rowan 1
Gosse kept the Profs in check until the bottom of the third, when McKenzie Melvin tripled with one out and scored on Payton MacNair's RBI single to give the home side a 1-0 lead.
 
Gosse, however, stranded runners on second and third to end the frame, and TCNJ grabbed the upper hand quickly in the fourth as Kinnally roped a two-run homer down the left-field line to score Kaci Neveling after the graduate student opened the frame with an infield hit.
 
Vincent and Yard registered back-to-back hits, and a fielding error allowed pinch-runner Jessica Sclafani to come home with the third run of the inning.
 
The Profs pulled one back in the bottom half on a two-out error, but Gosse got MacNair to ground out with two on to keep the Lions in the lead.
 
Kinnally came through in the clutch again in the seventh, when a two-out error put two on for the fifth-year slugger. On a 2-2 count, Kinnally delivered a double to the gap in right-center to bring home Morgan Estelow and Eveling with two critical insurance runs.
 
Gosse worked around two more base-runners in the seventh, getting a pair of groundouts with the tying run at the plate to end it. The left-hander had plenty of traffic on the base-paths, surrendering eight hits and walking two Profs, but left two Rowan batters stranded in three different innings.
 
STANDOUT LIONS

• Kinnally: 3-for-4, HR, 2B, 4 RBI
• Neveling: 3-for-4, 2R
• Yard: 2-for-3
• Gosse: CG, 8 H, 2R (1ER), 2 BB, 2 K

NOTES

• Kinnally extended her school-record career doubles total to 65 and smashed her 14^th career home run
• Roessler surpassed 150 career innings with her effective relief stint in Game 1
• Vincent eclipsed 50 career hits with four knocks on the day
• Gosse notched her 26^th career complete game and moved within four strikeouts of 200 for her career
• The five runs the Lions scored in Game 2 were the most by a Rowan opponent all season; the Profs had conceded just 26 runs – the lowest total in Division III – through their first 31 games

UP NEXT

• TCNJ hosts New Jersey City on Friday in an NJAC doubleheader