MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. - La Roche softball took on the tall task of facing NCAA Division I, Robert Morris, on Saturday and it was a difficult day, as the Colonials took the sweep.
GAME ONE: RMU 27 LRU 0 F/5
Robert Morris came out aggressive, stringing together hit after hit. Balls found gaps, line drives dropped, and every mistake was punished. By the time the inning ended, nine runs had crossed the plate. What had started with cautious optimism quickly turned into a 9–0 deficit.
In the dugout, the focus shifted from winning innings to simply stopping the momentum.
Katie Grimm battled through the early damage, but the pressure never eased. The second inning brought more of the same. Robert Morris continued to attack, capitalizing on both contact and defensive miscues. Errors extended innings, turning routine plays into prolonged rallies. The scoreboard kept climbing—10, 12, 15—until a massive inning pushed the lead to 23–0.
Pitching changes followed as La Roche tried to find any answer. Klover Haberthier entered, then Maura Wade, and later Finley Hohn, each stepping into a difficult situation with little margin for error. But the opposition's lineup never let up, adding runs in nearly every frame. Home runs and extra-base hits only added to the onslaught, stretching the score further out of reach.
Offensively, La Roche never found a foothold.
Facing a dominant outing from Madelyn Coleman, the lineup struggled to generate anything. Not a single hit broke through. A couple of walks offered brief chances, but they never developed into a rally. Strikeouts and soft contact kept innings short, and the pressure of the scoreboard made each at-bat feel heavier.
Defensively, there were moments of effort—plays made, balls tracked down—but four errors told the larger story. Against a team swinging confidently, those extra chances proved costly.
By the fourth inning, the score had reached 27–0. The final frame passed quietly, and the game ended after five innings.
GAME TWO: RMU 16 LRU 0 F/5
In the first inning, La Roche turned to Katie Grimm in the circle, hoping for a steadier start. There were moments of control, but timely hits broke through. A pair of RBI singles pushed across two runs, and La Roche was again playing from behind, trailing 2–0 before getting to the plate with any momentum.
The second inning brought more pressure. A double into the middle of the field added two more runs, one of them unearned, stretching the lead to 4–0. While not as explosive as the first game early on, the pattern felt familiar—Robert Morris capitalizing on opportunities, La Roche trying to keep pace.
Then came the third inning, and the game unraveled.
Hit after hit stacked up in rapid succession. A triple into the gap cleared the bases. Another single followed. Then another extra-base hit. Before the inning could be contained, nine runs had scored. Every ball in play seemed to find space, and every baserunner came around to score. By the end of the inning, La Roche faced a 13–0 deficit.
Maura Wade, who had shifted from center field into the circle, battled through the inning and managed to record outs under constant pressure. Klover Haberthier later took over and worked through the fourth, but Robert Morris continued to add on, including a home run that pushed the score to 16–0.
Offensively, La Roche struggled to respond.
Through five innings, they managed just one hit—a double off the bat of Wade. It was a clean swing, a moment of solid contact in an otherwise difficult day at the plate. But it stood alone. The rest of the lineup was kept in check, with strikeouts piling up and innings ending quickly. No walks, no sustained threats—just brief appearances at the plate against a pitching staff that stayed firmly in control.