WEST HAVEN, Conn. – After their three series road stand and coming off their Elm City battle, the University of New Haven Softball team returned home for a weekend homestand with a pair of conference match ups first against the Hawks of Saint Anselm College. Saturday's game against the Hawks also was the Chargers Senior Day where the blue and gold honored their six seniors who, prior to game one of the day.

Prior to the game, the blue and gold honored their six seniors, Meg Anderson (Cranston, R.I./Cranston), Halle Frederick (Green Lane, Pa./Quakertown), Lauren Haversat (Seymour, Conn./Seymoour), Bella Lagattolla (Hudson, Mass./Assabet Valley Regional Tech), Sarah Smith (Rockaway, N.J./Morris Catholic), and Ashley Veisz (Robbinsville,N.J./Robbinsville) for their hard work and dedication to their program during their time at New Haven.

Breanna Kinney (Minnetonka, Minn./Minnetonka) got the start in the circle for game one taking on the Hawks, but it was Saint Anselm jumping out early on the Chargers and Kinney scoring three runs in the first and second as Kinney would depart after throwing one and two-thirds innings of work as Skylar Griffin (Berlin, Md./Stephen Decatur) would enter the game to work in relief. Saints Anselm scored three runs off Griffin in the fourth inning taking a nine-run lead. In the home fourth, the Chargers got on the board following a one-out walk by Stephanie Smith (Rockaway, N.J./Morris Catholic) to get the inning going. Lauren Haversat (Seymour, Conn./Seymoour) singled to centerfield with two outs advancing Smith to second before the bat of the senior, Meg Anderson (Cranston, R.I./Cranston), doubled to left field scoring Smith and advancing Haversat to third base. The blue and gold scored their second run off Fredericks single on the infield scoring Haversat to make it a seven run game. The fifth inning went quiet but the sixth inning, the Hawks scored a pair of runs and would go on and win 11-2 over the Chargers. Headed into game two, the Chargers looked to split with the Hawks on Senior Day. Viana McKinley (North Chesterfield, Va./Monacan) got the start in game two for the Chargers as she needed to get ground outs with the extreme wind in the outfield. After a leadoff double the Hawks pushed their first run of the game across to take the lead in the first. The Hawks added a pair of runs in the second making it a three run game. New Haven responded in the second inning after Anderson stayed hot singling to lead off the inning. Following the single, Halle Frederick (Green Lane, Pa./Quakertown) dropped down a sacrifice bunt to advance Anderson to second before Sophia Piccirilli (Dover, N.H./Winnacunnet) came on to pinch run for Anderson. With Piccirilli on second Kylie Thorpe (Taunton, Mass./Taunton) flew out to right field and with the wind the Hawks right fielder made an error on the play as Piccirilli came around to score from second making it 3-1. New Haven tied things up in the fourth inning with one swing of the bat. Anderson double to get the inning started and after back to back groundouts, Kylie Thorpe (Taunton, Mass./Taunton) stepped into the box and after seeing three pitches, turned on the fourth that was in the zone and cleared the left field fence for a two-run homerun tying the game up at 3-3. In the fifth, Bella Chenet (Plantation, Fla./Archbishop McCarthy) led the inning off with a double and just as they had done all game, the Chargers did their damage with two outs and Breanna Trueman put a ball in play as the Hawks third baseman made an error, as Trueman reached first on the play and Chenet used her speed moving on the pitch to score on the play as the Chargers took their first lead of the afternoon, 4-3. Thorpe's hot bat stayed hot as New Haven extended their lead in the sixth as Thorpe doubled with one out and Cori Wilton walked to follow her. With two on and one out, the top of the order came up to bat and cashed in as Chenet singled scoring Thorpe and advancing Wilton to third. Chenet then stole second to break up a double play opportunity before advancing to third on Olivia Roberto's (Merrick, N.Y./Calhoun) ground ball that scored Wilton fron third. Lauren Haversat (Seymour, Conn./Seymoour) then singled to score Chenet as New Haven scored three taking a 7-3 lead heading into the seventh. Needing three outs and with a four run lead, McKinley went back to work in the circle. McKinley gave up a lead off double but got the next Hawk to fly out. After a double to score a run McKinley got a popout in foul territory that Stephanie Smith (Rockaway, N.J./Morris Catholic) made a diving play on to get the second out of the inning and help McKinley. The Hawks would add another run off a double making it a two run game before McKinley would give up a two-run homerun as the game would be tied up at 7-7. The Hawks would take the lead off another double as New Haven needed to come back to win things in the seventh as they trailed 8-7. Meg Anderson (Cranston, R.I./Cranston) wasted no time tying the game up at 8-8 with a solo homerun as New Haven looked to walk thing off, and got a runner to third base but would strand the runner and forcing the game into extras. The Hawks would take the lead off a homerun in the eighth to take the lead 9-8. In the home half of the inning the blue and gold needed one to tie and two to walk it off, but New Haven was not able to push a tying run across as they would fall in game two, 9-8

New Haven looked to bounce back on the homestand as they welcome the Penmen of Southern New Hampshire to Charger Softball field for a Sunday double-header. First pitch between the Chargers and Penmen is scheduled for 12:00 p.m. and all updates, schedules, and post-game recaps for the team will be available at Newhavenchargers.com.