Harrisonburg, Va. – James Madison's Taylor Newton hit her third home run in two games with a solo shot in the sixth to provide the winning run in a pitcher's duel as Hofstra fell to the Dukes, 2-1, in the finale of the three-game Colonial Athletic Association series on Sunday at Veterans Memorial Park.
A great pitching matchup between Jailyn Ford and Hofstra junior Morgan Lashley ended with a JMU sweep when Newton, who also hit a fourth-inning sacrifice fly, knocked her fifth home run of the season over the wall left off a 0-1 pitch that broke a 1-all deadlock. Lashley took the hard-luck loss in falling to 9-2 as Hofstra dropped to 13-6 and 0-3. JMU improved to 22-9 and 3-0. Both teams entered the weekend receiving votes in the NFCA and USA Softball national polls.
Newton's fourth-inning sacrifice fly opened the scoring but senior Ashley Ainbinder's RBI opposite-field RBI double in the top of the fifth tied the score before Newton's home run. Newton had hit home runs in back-to-back innings in Saturday's Game 2 victory.
Lashley struck out three in six innings and allowed just four hits in throwing 55 of her 80 pitches for strikes. Ford, the 2013 CAA Rookie of the Year, improved to 12-5 by holding Hofstra to four hits with six strikeouts against zero walks.
Ainbinder, who finished 2-for-3, gave Hofstra a late left with a two-out double to left in the seventh. Ford ended the contest and posted a strikeout to end the contest.
Hofstra lost a conference series for just the third time in 78 series since joining the CAA. It was Hofstra's first conference series loss since 2006 when Delaware took two-of-three on Hofstra's home field. The Pride had won 48 previous regular season series before this weekend.
Ford retired the first nine batters without allowing a ball out of the infield. Lashley nearly matched her in not allowing a hit through the first three innings. Lashley walked the leadoff batter in the second, induced two outs, and then stranded two after hitting a batter by getting Madyson Morgan to fly out to left to end the inning.
Freshman Chloe Fitzgerald provided the first hit for either team with a leadoff infield single in the fourth. Ford responded by retiring the next three batters.
JMU scored in the bottom of the inning when Erica Field reached on a hard-hit line drive to second and Ford singled to left. Caitlyn Sandy popped up a bunt but Lashley couldn't make the catch, loading the bases. Newton, who homered in back-to-back innings in the second game of Saturday's doubleheader, lofted a fly ball to left that was deep enough to score Field. Lashley shook off the run and retired the next two batters to keep the deficit at one.
Sophomore Maggie Hawkins gave Hofstra a lift with a second-pitch single to center off the hands to start the fifth. Ainbinder then galvanized the Hofstra bench with a hard-hit RBI double to right-center that tied the score. It was Ainbinder's second RBI of the season.
Hofstra is now 35-9 in the all-time series against JMU.
Senior shortstop Becca Bigler's home run on Saturday marked her 27th career long ball to tie her with Lisa Wambold (2003-06) for fourth on the program's all-time list. Ashley Lane (2004-07) is the all-time leader with 40.
Hofstra will next be in action on Wednesday with a scheduled doubleheader at Rutgers with a 2:30 p.m. first pitch from Piscataway, N.J.
