Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Raleigh, N.C. – After faltering in the first game of the season Friday afternoon against Glenville State, Millersville responded in a big way, busting open a 10-run first to power past the Shepherd Rams in the back end of a two game season-opening day at the Shaw Invitational Tournament in Raleigh, N.C. After two games, the team's record stands at 1-1.
 
The Marauders dropped their opening game of the season to Glenville State, 3-1. After taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning freshman pitcher Amanda Wink, who pitched a complete game in her first career outing, surrendered three runs over the final two innings to take the loss.
 
Millersville took the lead in the top half of the first inning on sophomore catcher Gabbie Berry's sacrifice RBI groundout, scoring freshman Brittany Shoemaker. Shoemaker got the start in right field and registered one of three Marauder hits. The other two came courtesy of sophomore first baseman Ashley Cantiello and junior Ginely Ortiz-Marrero's fifth inning double.
 
After the Pioneers grabbed a 2-1 in the fourth on the strength of a single to center and Marauder error, Millersville's new leftfielder advanced to third after a leadoff two-bagger before being stranded at third with a chance to retake the lead. When Glenville came up in the bottom of the sixth, the Pioneers struck, coming up with back-to-back hits to lead off the inning and swell the lead to 3-1. The Marauders could not rally from there, going three up and three down to finish the game.
 
In the nightcap, Millersville hung 13 runs on Shepherd in a 13-1 victory. It was the most runs the team has scored since beating Urbana 14-3 on March 7, 2011 and the largest margin of victory for the Marauders since beating Lincoln (Pa.) 20-1 in the back end of a doubleheader on Apr. 21, 2010.
 
After falling into a 1-0 hole in the top of the first, Millersville exploded for 10 runs in the bottom of the first inning. The Marauders used three hits and took advantage of two Ram errors in the inning. The three hits came courtesy of Cantiello, who singled in Berry for the team's first run, Ortiz-Marrero, whose base knock scored both sophomore transfer Cara Nance and junior Jamie Motsko and freshman Jordan Sheffield.
 
Sheffield's hit was the final one of the inning for the team, and scored junior Taylor Odell-Smith as well as Ortiz-Marrero. The Rams were not out of the woods yet though, as three Millersville walks, a hit batter and a Shepherd error resulted five more runs after Sheffield's single. In the bottom of the third inning, the Marauders plated three more runs on hits by Berry and Motsko in addition to an RBI sacrifice groundout by Nance that scored Berry.
 
Lost in the amount of runs Millersville scored against Shepherd was the pitching brilliance of starter Sarah Bertoni. After giving up the game's first run on two hits in the first half-inning of the game, the sophomore settled in, allowing just one hit over the next four innings to finish with a line of 5.0 innings pitched, three hits, an earned run and four strikeouts.
 
For the first day of the season, Ortiz-Marrero, Berry and Cantiello were the three players to register two hits apiece. Cantiello leads the team with three RBI and Shoemaker has scored a team-best four runs. Because of postponement to Saturday's games, the Marauders are scheduled to get back on the field Sunday at 11 a.m. against Seton Hill for the final game of their five-game season-opening Shaw Invitational Tournament. Stay tuned to MillersvilleAthletics.com for more details.