NEWARK, Del. (March 13, 2015) – The Saint Francis U softball team rode the strong pitching of Ethel Santai (Pine Grove, Pa./Pine Grove Area) to up a victory over the Wildcats of Villanova Friday to open play at the Delaware Spring Invitational.

Santai (3-0) continued her dominant start, picking up her third win of the season. She allowed an earned run over seven innings while walking only one and striking out six. This was her third complete game in three starts this season. 

It was not until the bottom of the third inning that Saint Francis put the first run up on the board. Maggie Creciun (Norristown, Pa./Norristown) reached base on an error with one out in the inning and then advanced on a wild pitched that allowed Jordan Seneca (New Kensington, Pa./Plum) to reach base. That brought up Maddison Cabell who ripped a single to left field to bring home Creciun. 

Santai worked a scoreless top half of the fourth to keep Villanova off the board.

SFU struck again in the bottom half of the inning in the form of a Kindra Witthus (Hudson, Wis./Hudson) homerun (1) to center field. The Flash plated its third and final run in the fifth. The Wildcats broke through in the sixth with their only run of the game.  

Saint Francis improved to 9-4 on the season with the victory and looks to start another winning streak as it plays host, Delaware and then will square off against Cornell for the first time on Saturday. Scheduled first pitch against UD is 9 a.m. followed by a 1:30 p.m. start time versus Cornell.