KUTZTOWN, Pa. – No. 19 Kutztown softball and Shippensburg both walked off North Campus Field Sunday afternoon accomplishing something positive in a pair of 3-2 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Eastern Division games.
 
The Golden Bears (37-14 overall, 21-11 PSAC), who won the opener 3-2, clinched the second seed in this week's PSAC Tournament and also continued to solidify its place in the upcoming NCAA Tournament (KU was ranked second in the Atlantic Region earlier this week in the second of three weekly rankings). The Raiders (30-18, 19-13) secured the final spot at PSAC Championships with a 3-2 victory in the nightcap.
 
Jenna Piatkiewicz (Fogelsville, Pa./Parkland) finished with four hits on the day. Emily Henn (Matamoras, Pa./Delaware Valley) recorded three hits and each of Brianna Stocklin (Deptford, N.J./Deptford Township), Kristin Geesey (Bainbridge, Pa./Elizabethtown), Alexa Stevens (Covington Township, Pa./North Pocono) and Morgan Slomkowski (Toms River, N.J./Toms River East) tallied two hits, with Geesey adding two RBIs. Both Sarah Harvat (Bangor, Pa./Bangor) and Samantha Paetow (Fayetteville, Pa./Chambersburg) contributed an RBI each.
 
Haley Gravish (Hamburg, Pa./Hamburg) started game one inside the circle and threw a complete game, allowing just two runs to earn her 24th victory of the season.
 
Kutztown will now set its sights on the PSAC Tournament later this week at Veterans Park in Quakertown. KU is the two seed and will know its day one matchup, Wednesday, April 30, later this week.
 
Kutztown 3, Shippensburg 2
 
It took a little bit of time for the two teams to get going as there were not hits through the first inning-and-a-half. Stevens recorded the game's first hit in the bottom of the second inning, an infield single, and then later scored on a two-run single up the middle by Geesey to put Kutztown ahead 2-0.
 
Gravish did not allow a hit until the third inning and kept Shippensburg off the scoreboard most of the game, until the top of the sixth when the Raiders brought around two runs to tie the score at 2-2.
 
The Golden Bears wasted little time in getting their lead back as they responded with a run in the bottom-half of the frame. Slomkowski led off the inning with a double the opposite way to right field and then scored the winning run on a fielder's choice by Harvat, who picked up the RBI.
 
KU was actually outhit 7-5, but made its hits count.
 
Shippensburg 3, Kutztown 2
 
Just as it did in game one, Kutztown got out ahead with an early two-run inning, this time bringing home two runners in the bottom of the first as a Shippensburg throwing error allowed Henn to score the game's first run and then Paetow ripped an RBI single to bring around Stevens for the 2-0 lead after one.
 
That would be all of the scoring that the Golden Bears would do the final six innings off Raiders starter Dani Hayward, who allowed 11 hits, but no earned runs, two runs coming from her team's errors.
 
Shippensburg scored a run in each of the top of the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, with the tying run coming on a bases loaded walk in the fifth and the winning run on an RBI double in the sixth.
 
These two teams may see each other again this week in Quakertown and then again at NCAAs.

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