MANCHESTER, N.H. – The University of New Haven softball team had its Northeast-10 championship run come to an end on Friday morning, dropping 5-1 decision to the Saint Anselm Hawks in the semifinal round. Leading the Chargers on the day was freshman catcher Mya Case (Syracuse, N.Y/West Genessee) who picked up the Chargers only RBI on a single up the middle.

Overall, the Chargers finished the day with a pair of hits, the other coming from senior shortstop Taylor Luzzi (Fishkill, N.Y./John Jay) who knocked a two-out double to the wall in left center in the top of the sixth. In the circle, freshman Mia Iodice (Rehoboth, Mass./Dighton-Rehoboth Regional) threw a complete game for the Blue and Gold, allowing five runs, three of which were earned, on six hits while striking out five batters.

The Hawks opened up the scoring in the bottom of the first inning, taking advantage of a pair of errors on the first two at bats of the game. The early deficit for New Haven would hold until the top of the third inning when a one-out walk issued to junior left fielder Catherine Vaughan (Commack, N.Y./Hauppauge) proved costly for Saint Anselm. After Vaughan swiped her 11th base of the season, she was driven home on the Chargers first hit of the day when Case laced a single up the middle.

The Chargers threatened to even the score in the sixth inning when Luzzi's two-out double put a runner in scoring position for the clean-up batter, sophomore designated player Jovanna Hillman (Seymour, Conn./Saint Joseph). Saint Anselm started Morgan Perry battled tough with Hillman who fouled off a number of pitches before Perry recorded her eighth strikeout of the game to end the threat and strand Luzzi at second.

New Haven will now await a potential bid to the upcoming NCAA Division II East Region Championship which will be announced by the national office on Monday, May 6 at 10:00 a.m. on NCAA.com. The top-eight teams in the region will earn a bid to the national tournament with the top two seeds hosting simultaneous four-team double-elimination regional tournaments. The winner of each regional will then meet in a best-of-three super regional to be hosted by the top remaining seed. Entering the NE10 Championship, the Chargers were slated seventh in the third and final regional rankings released prior to the selection show on Monday.