Syracuse sweeps Canisius as Coach Bosch grabs 600th win

By Sam Rothman

SYRACUSE, N.Y.— In its last seven games, Syracuse (18-14, 4-7 Atlantic Coast) softball scored just 13 runs. In SU’s doubleheader with Canisius (3-22, 0-0 Metro Atlantic Athletic) on Wednesday, the Orange crossed home 16 times en route to a two-game sweep over the Golden Griffins. Syracuse cruised to a 6-2 win in game one and used its offensive firepower to cap off a 10-4 victory later in the day.

The Orange couldn’t score first in its doubleheader against Boston College, but started off its series with the Golden Griffins with a three-run lead right out of the gate. Alexa Romero opened well, forcing six straight outs through the first two innings. And the Syracuse batters followed her dominant play in the circle at bat. Two straight errors from Emily Nicosia led to two Orange runners on base. Faith Cain opened the scoring with a single, driving home junior Bryce Holmgren. Hannah Dossett followed with an RBI groundout to bring home Gabby Teran and Cain later scored on Toni Martin’s double. Cain had just one run and one RBI through 32 games. The senior recorded two runs and two RBI in just one day’s work.

“Some players who have had tougher years really stepped up and had good days for us,” SU head coach Mike Bosch said. “Faith really stepped up and had a great day for us. That is key for us going into the last few weeks of the season.”

Come the bottom of the third, Teran smashed her second home run of the season and drove home Holmgren to extend the Orange’s lead to 5-1. SU has recorded just three homers so far this season, and two of them are due to the freshman.

“It definitely builds a lot of confidence, especially it being my first hit in a couple of games,” Teran said. “I just tried to hit the ball hard and put it in play to try to see what I could do. And good things happen when you do that.”

Syracuse made it look easy in the first matchup but the second game began poorly. AnnaMarie Gatti hit a batter and tossed a wild pitch to open the second inning and Canisius capitalized on the errors with two runs. However, with two outs, the Golden Griffins weren’t done yet. Cassie Ho doubled and brought home a runner to round out a three-run inning for her team.

Syracuse answered in the bottom of the inning with four runs of its own. Alicia Hansen, who leads the ACC in triples, hit her sixth of the season and then scored on a wild pitch. After Martin and Cain walked, Rachel Burkhardt’s RBI double drove them home. Burkhardt then crossed home herself off of Michala Maciolek’s single for the 4-3 advantage.

“You get knocked down, and you get back up,” Burkhardt said. “It wasn’t a great situation to be in, so knowing that we were able to come back, and knowing that we can do that in the future, was a great confidence booster for us.”

The Golden Griffins tried to claw their way back into the game, but they would only convert just once more. On the other hand, the Orange tallied six more runs for the 10-4 victory.

“We just made things happen,” Bosch said. “That for us is big because obviously we have struggled offensively for the last two weeks. Just getting some momentum offensively is important.”

With the win in game one, Bosch picked up his 600th career victory in sixteen years of coaching.

“It means I’m old,” Bosch said. “But, it really means that I’ve had a lot of good players. I’ve never won a game personally myself on the field, so I’ve just been able to coach a lot of really good people that fortunately have done well for us. Hopefully, I have a few more left in me, but 600 is a nice milestone.”

Bosch looks to add some more wins as Syracuse hits the road for a three-game series against ACC rival Notre Dame this weekend.

@samrothman_ | sbrothma@syr.edu