LORETTO, Pa. – Saint Francis University softball took both of its final regular-season home games against Bucknell 1-0 and 13-4 in a five-innings run-rule.
 
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
» Grace Vesco (13-11) took a victory with seven shutout innings and allowed four hits and seven walks with four strikeouts. She set a new program record with her 576th-career strikeout.
» Rachel Marsden (9-11) earned the game two victory and went 3-for-6 with two runs scored, one home run and three RBIs.
» Lexi Hernandez went 3-for-3 with a double, solo home run and two total RBIs in game two.
» Eight different Red Flash players recorded at least two hits in the doubleheader and eight players scored at least one run.
» Saint Francis recorded a season-high 18 hits and its second-most runs with 13 in game two.
 
TURNING POINTS OF GAME ONE
» Saint Francis and Bucknell were both no-hit through the first two innings before the Bison recorded the first hit in the third. In the bottom half, Ashley Orischak hit a bunt single and was driven in by Jordan Pietrzykoski three batters later.
» After the teams combined for four hits across three more scoreless innings, Bucknell loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh. Vesco produced the final out and preserved Saint Francis shutout 1-0 victory.
 
TURNING POINTS OF GAME TWO
» Bucknell scored the first run of game two with an RBI single up the middle and took a 1-0 lead in the first. Saint Francis responded with a one-run single from Olivia Ulam, two-run Savannah Nash double and one-run Hernandez double and took a 4-1 lead.
» The Red Flash expanded the lead in the second inning with an Ashley Wruble RBI double and Ulam RBI groundout. Bucknell got one run back in the third on a sacrifice fly that cut the lead to 6-2.
» In the bottom half, Saint Francis piled on seven runs and took a 13-4 lead. Hernandez began the rally with a solo home run, followed by two runs scored on a Bucknell error.
» Marsden continued the run with a three-run home run and Nash went back-to-back with Marsden with a solo home run.
» Bucknell scored two runs on a groundout and infield single before Saint Francis clinched its run-rule 13-4 victory and doubleheader sweep.
 
FLASH NUGGETS
» Vesco's 576 career strikeouts broke Laura Caldwell's mark of 575 in 183.9 less innings pitched. With 530.2 innings pitched in her career, Vesco moved to fifth in program history and she became the fifth pitcher in program history to appear in 100 games on the mound. She is now top-five in all-four pitching categories in Saint Francis' record book.
» With a two-hit performance in game two, Pietrzykoski earned her 150th hit as a member of the Red Flash. She raised her batting average this season to .360.
» Hernandez's home run was her first of the season and game two marked the fifth three-hit performance of her career.
» Orischak is now 4-for-6 with three runs scored in three straight games since rejoining the Saint Francis starting lineup.
» Saint Francis' 18 hits are tied for the single-game high over the last 10 seasons (previously set on March 19, 2022 against LIU). This is a single-game high in five innings during that span.

UP NEXT
Saint Francis is set to conclude the regular season with a crucial three-game series at Merrimack scheduled for April 29-30.