Box Score



KUTZTOWN, Pa. – Senior center field Brianna Stocklin (Deptford, N.J./Deptford Township) made sure to start her final NCAA Tournament off on a positive note as she delivered a clutch, two-out single through the ride side that brought home Sarah Harvat (Bangor, Pa./Bangor) as the game-winning run of a 5-4 victory over Charleston in the opening game of NCAA Regionals Thursday afternoon at North Campus Field.
 
The second-seeded Golden Bears (40-16 overall) won their 40th game of the season for the first time since 2022. They advance to Friday's game three against the sixth seed, Bloomsburg, scheduled for 10 a.m. The seventh-seeded Golden Eagles will play the three seed, Shepherd at 12:30 p.m.
 
With the score tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning and one out, Harvat reached base thanks to a UC error and then Kristin Geesey (Bainbridge, Pa./Elizabethtown) followed with a single to left field to put runners on at first and second. After Charleston starter, Addison Mass, recorded a fly out to right for the second out, it looked as if the game would go to the 10th inning. But on the first pitch she saw, Stocklin pulled the fastball and hit it through the right side and Harvat hustled home for the winning run and celebration.
 
Haley Gravish (Hamburg, Pa./Hamburg) threw a complete game, allowing just the three runs and struck out five in nine innings of work. She picked up her 27th victory of the season, tied for second-most in a single season in program history and threw 133 pitches.
 
Stocklin went 3-for-5 at the plate with the RBI. Geesey finished with two hits and Samantha Paetow (Fayetteville, Pa./Chambersburg) was 2-for-3 with two RBIs, including a two-run single in the bottom of the fourth inning that brought the Maroon and Gold back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the score.
 
The Golden Eagles responded with another run in the top of the fifth on an RBI single by Taylor Hodson to go back up 3-2. In the bottom-half of the frame, Kutztown answered yet again as the first three batters in Geesey, Jenna Piatkiewicz (Fogelsville, Pa./Parkland) and Stocklin all singled. Two batters later Emily Henn (Matamoras, Pa./Delaware Valley) hit a sacrifice fly to left field that brought home pinch runner Leanna Schenk (Roslyn, Pa./Abington) for the 3-3 tie.
 
Gravish and Mass each threw three consecutive scoreless innings to take the game to the deciding ninth inning when Kutztown won it in the bottom-half of the frame.