LORETTO, Pa. - The Red Flash opens the home portion of its schedule with two doubleheaders this weekend against the top two teams in the Northeast Conference standings. On Friday, second place Central Connecticut comes calling, while first place Bryant visits Loretto on Saturday afternoon. The doubleheader with CCSU begins at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow, while Saturday's twinbill against Bryant starts at noon.

SCOUTING THE RED FLASH
Saint Francis is just 2-7 in its last nine games, but just four of those games were conference games. The Flash is currently 3-3 in the NEC and in fifth place. Saint Francis is also playing its next eight games at home. Senior catcher Chelsy Cosentino (New Kensington, Pa./Kiski Area) is leading the team with a .362 batting average and 34 hits. Freshman Alexis Bower (Cogan Station, Pa./Williamsport Area) leads the team with six home runs and 31 RBIs. As a pitcher, she also has 12 wins and a 2.60 ERA. Maggie Creciun (Norristown, Pa./Norristown) leads the team with a .500 (5-for-10) batting average in NEC games this year, with Taylor Parsons (Bellefonte, Pa./Bald Eagle) hitting .421 (8-for-19). Creciun led the team with a .400 batting average in six games last week. She also led with four RBIs and had the team's lone triple last week. The Flash has 77 two-out RBIs so far this season, 28 more than its opponents.

SCOUTING CENTRAL CONNECTICUT
The Central Connecticut softball team scored six runs in the top of the sixth inning to claim their eighth-straight win on Sunday afternoon over Bryant in game one of a doubleheader in Smithfield, R.I. before dropping game two 7-2.
With the split, the Blue Devils record moves to 21-12 (7-3 NEC) while Bryant closes the weekend at 22-15 (8-2 NEC). Junior Laura Messina pitched both games for CCSU for the second day in a row. She tallied eight strikeouts in game one while allowing five hits and just one earned run. In game two, she added eight strikeouts, allowed nine hits and walked two. She closes the weekend with a 17-9 record.

SCOUTING BRYANT
The Bryant University softball team fell to Rhode Island, 11-3, in six innings Wednesday afternoon in Kingston, R.I. On a brisk day in Southern Rhode Island, the Bulldogs (22-16) allowed six unearned runs, thanks to five errors, in a tough loss to in-state foe URI (10-23).  Elle Madsen leads the NEC with 11 home runs while batting .363. Aubrey Mable is hitting .367 with seven home runs.