PHOTO GALLERY

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Top-seed Georgian Court used a five-run fifth inning to erase three run deficit and advance in the winners bracket of the 2021 NCAA East Region Championship hosted by Saint Anselm College.

With the loss, its first in the six-team double-elimination tournament, New Haven falls to 1-1 and will now face the loser of today's second game featuring No. 2 seed Saint Anselm and No. 3 seed Adelphi in an elimination game this afternoon.

HOW IT HAPPENED

New Haven struck first and often in the opening innings, scoring a pair of runs in the top of the first inning and three more in the second for an early 5-0 advantage.

Junior second baseman Nahtali Simpson (West Orange, N.J./West Orange) doubled home Mya Case (Syracuse, N.Y/West Genessee), who led off the game with a walk, to open up the days scoring. Senior catcher Jovanna Hillman (Seymour, Conn./Saint Joseph) followed that up two batters later, bringing home Simpson with a two-out single that ricocheted off Georgian Court's starting pitcher Samantha Fohman.

The Chargers rallied again in the second with a single from Hailey Laforte (Milford, Conn./Foran) starting out the action. Her speed then beat an attempt to erase the lead runner on a groundball to second base, allowing senior first baseman Melissa Bike (Stratford, Conn./Saint Joseph) to reach safely. That led to a second home run of the East Regionals for the Blue and Gold, this time with freshman third baseman Ashley Veisz (Robbinsville,N.J./Robbinsville) smacking her first career long ball over the fence in left field.

That home run also drove the Georgian Court starter out of the game with Mikayla Gilgert coming on in relief and eventually earning the victory in the circle. Gilgert would go on to pitch six shutout innings for the Lions, striking out 13 and retiring 10 straight batters at one point.

Georgian Court inched within 5-2 with a pair of third-inning runs. However, it was the sixth inning when their bats came alive. The Lions sent 10 batters to the plate and scored five runs to change a three-run deficit to a two-run lead. The big hit of the inning was delivered by Malaya Black who drove in two runs on a triple to right field.

The Chargers managed to get the go-ahead run to the plate in the top of the seventh, but were unsuccessful in their late rally attempt. Case began the rally attempt with a single before junior Ava Fitzmaurice (Greenville, N.Y./Greenville) walked to put two runners on. That led to a long fly ball from Simpson that forced the Georgian Court right fielder to the warning track for what was the second out of the inning. Gilgert then recorded the final out on an infield popup to advance her squad to a winner's bracket game on Friday.

Fitzmaurice suffered the loss in the circle for New Haven, just her fourth defeat of the season. The junior surrendered all seven runs, five of them earned, on 10 hits and a walk. Junior Mia Iodice (Rehoboth, Mass./Dighton-Rehoboth Regional) would come on in the sixth inning to record the final out.

UP NEXT 

New Haven looks to stay alive in the double-elimination East Regional when they play the loser of No. 2 Saint Anselm and No. 3 Adelphi in a second game later today. The elimination game this afternoon would start no earlier than 4:00 p.m.