Box Score

Tournament Central Homepage

Madeira Beach, Fla. -The Villanova Wildcats (0-1, 0-0 BIG EAST) softball team opened up their 2016 campaign with a 3-1 loss against the George Mason Patriots Friday afternoon at the Eastern Michigan / Madeira Beach Spring Invitational.

The Patriots would jump out an early 2-0 lead in the top half of the first inning as Heather Ferguson singled through the right side to give GMU a 1-0 lead. Casey Price would later score on a pass ball to extend the Patriots lead to 2-0.

The Wildcats would get on the board in the bottom half of the third inning thanks to leadoff single from senior Shea Palmer. Palmer would advance to second after Brittany Husk flied out to center field. Two batters later junior Chase Snell ripped a single to left field scoring Palmer to cut the George Mason lead in half at 2-1.

Neither team would score a run until the top half of the seventh inning as McKenzie Jones tacked on an insurance run for the Patriots to extend their lead to 3-1.

Despite taking the loss, senior Kate Poppe had a solid performance on the mound striking out eight batters and scattering only three hits over seven innings of work. Senior Sierra McConnell was 2-for-3 from the plate Friday afternoon and Snell went 1-for-2 at the plate with an RBI.

Lauren Herschberg, Dana Morris, and Nikki Alden all collected hits for the Wildcats.

Since 1999, Villanova is now 11-7 in season openers. The Wildcats will be right back at it later today as they take on the Manhattan Jaspers at 6:30 p.m. Live stats for the Manhattan game can be found here.

Be sure to follow the team socially on Twitter @VUSoftball, Instagram @novasoftball and Facebook to stay up to date with the latest news scores and highlights from the Wildcats throughout the season.