Syracuse Drops Back and Forth Battle With Georgia Tech

By Tom Russo

CitrusTV Softball Beat Reporter

ATLANTA – Head Coach Shannon Doepking focused on getting her team to hit more homers heading into this season, and the Orange finally seem to be making that happen.  After a three-homer day on Tuesday in Binghamton, Syracuse launched two more bombs today.

However, the long balls weren’t enough as Georgia Tech (28-23, 9-10 Atlantic Coast) tops Syracuse (20-26, 8-11 ACC) in a 5-4 walk-off victory.

Lailoni Mayfield opened the scoring in the top of the second with a solo blast to right center for her second home run of the season. But the Yellow Jackets responded immediately, as Alexa Romero was not quite her usual self. Romero walked two batters and hit a third to load the bases in the bottom of the second. Breanna Roper then roped a two-run single into the right center field to take a 2-1 lead.

Bailee Zietler followed her up with an RBI single to left to make it a 3-1 game.

A home run would come to the aid of the Orange again when Alicia Hansen teed off her second of the year in the top of the third to cut the lead back to one.

Georgia Tech then said anything you can do, I can do better. Romero gave a run right back in the bottom half of the inning as Tricia Awald led off with a solo homer to put the Yellow Jackets back up, 4-2.

The back-and-forth contest continued when Hannah Dossett brought it back to even in the fifth with a two-run double into the right center field gap.

Things stayed knotted until the bottom of the seventh, when Romero walked her sixth GT player of the game. Awald then cued up a double into the left center field gap before Skye Webb became the hero. The sophomore delivered a walk-off single through the right side to score Cameron Stanford and win it for the Yellow Jackets.

The teams will meet for game two of the weekend series tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.

twrusso@syr.edu ǀ @TomRusso24