KUTZTOWN, Pa. – In the final day of the regular season Monday afternoon, Kutztown and Shippensburg softball were competing for the three and four seeds in this week's Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference tournament, which begins Wednesday. KU won both games by scores of 5-2 and 12-7, sweeping Ship and taking the three seed.
 
The Golden Bears finished the regular season with a 28-22 overall record and 22-10 in the PSAC East. They recognized seniors Sarah Harvey (Swanton, Vt./Missisquoi Valley Union), Jenna Martinez (Oracle, Ariz./Canyon del Oro) and Kate Ostaszewski (Philadelphia, Pa./Archbishop Ryan).
 
KU combined for 26 total hits on the day. Kristin Geesey (Bainbridge, Pa./Elizabethtown) led the Maroon and Gold lineup with five hits. Naya Darnowski (Manchester, N.J./Manchester Township) and Harvey finished with four hits and Brianna Stocklin (Deptford, N.J./Deptford Township) had three.
 
Haley Gravish (Hamburg, Pa./Hamburg) won the opener inside the circle to earn her 17th win of the season, tied for third-most in the conference. She went all seven and allowed just the two runs, improving her ERA to 1.94, fifth in the PSAC. Amanda Slabicki (Langhorne, Pa./Neshaminy) came on in relief in the night cap and threw the final 2.2 innings to record the win.
 
Kutztown is set to open up play in the PSAC Tournament at Veterans Park in Quakertown. KU will be the three seed from the East Division and will play Mercyhurst, the second seed from the West, in the first game on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. It is a rematch of last season's PSAC title game.
 
Kutztown 5, Shippensburg 2
 
Needing to win at least one of the two games against Shippensburg, Kutztown did not play around, taking care of business in the opener. After a scoreless first inning for both teams, KU scored four in the next two, bringing home one in the bottom of the second and three in the third.
 
Geesey led off the second with a single, but was out on a fielder's choice the next batter. With two outs and Reimel on first base, Gravish ripped a single to left field that got past the Raiders left fielder and ran to the fence. Reimel was able to score from first for the opening run. In the third, Ostaszewski got into a pickle in-between third and home and got out of it, avoiding the tag of Ship's catcher to touch home safely for the second run of the game. The next batter, Geesey had a two-run single up the middle to give her team a 4-0 lead after three.
 
Shippensburg cut its deficit in half in the top of the fourth on an RBI single by Morgan Lindsay and a run-scoring ground out by Alyssa Nehlen. Harvey, who had three hits in the game, connected for an RBI single and a 5-2 KU advantage.
 
Gravish struck out five and allowed two runs on four hits for her 17th win of the season.
 
Kutztown 12, Shippensburg 7
 
Kutztown finished just two hits shy of its season-high, tallying 16 hits. Six Golden Bears had multi-hit games, led by a 3-for-4 effort from Geesey, who also scored two runs.
 
KU climbed back from a 4-0 deficit in the second by scoring a run in the bottom-half and three more in the third to tie the game up. Stocklin had a run-scoring single in the second, while in the third, Harvey ripped her eighth home run of the season and Martinez celebrated senior day with a two-run single to tie the game after three.
 
After a scoreless fourth, the Raiders (27-18, 19-13) put up a three-spot in the fifth to go back on top, but Kutztown answered immediately with a seven-run, bottom-half, highlighted by RBI singles by Stocklin and Ostaszewski, a two-run double from Darnowski and a two-run long ball by Hughes. Stocklin capped the scoring for the Golden Bears with a sacrifice fly in the sixth and a 12-7 lead, which Slabicki finished off 1-2-3 in a rainy seventh inning.

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