The Dominican University softball team picked up another pair of wins on Thursday, running their winning streak to eight games, topping the Eastern Nazarene College Lions 4-1 before finishing the day with a 9-2 win over the New Jersey City University Gothic Knights.  Sophomore Sydney Kuderna picked up both wins in the circle for the second time on the Stars' road trip to the Gene Cusic Classic.
 
The Stars are now 8-0 on the trip and 9-3 overall with four games remaining in Southwest Florida before returning home.  On Friday, Dominican returns to CenturyLink Sports Complex to face the Wheelock College Wildcats and Salem State University Vikings before closing out the trip on Saturday against The College at Brockport and University of Pittsburgh-Bradford.
 
Game One: Dominican 4, Eastern Nazarene 1
 
The Stars opened a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Gabby Curran tripled down the right field line and then scored on Lions' passed ball.  Curran then scored in similar fashion in the third as the Dominican lead increased to 2-0 after three innings.
 
In the top of the fifth, the Stars loaded the bases with nobody out but could not get a run across until Gabi Alfaro roped a two-run double down the left field line to extend the Stars' lead to 4-0.
 
Kuderna tossed five scoreless innings, limiting the Lions to just three base runners over the first five innings on two hits and one walk. Anissa Becker then came on for the final two innings, surrendering a solo home run to Elisabeth Schaffer to lead off the bottom of the seventh before getting the final three outs.
 
Curran and Alfaro combined for six of Dominican's nine hits in the game with Alfaro driving in two runs and Curran scoring twice.
 
Game Two: Dominican 9, NJCU 2
 
Kuderna tossed four more scoreless innings in the Stars' second game of the day, surrendering just two hits and one walk to the Gothic Knights while striking out three to improve to 6-2 in the circle and lower her earned run average to 2.72.  The left-hander is unbeaten on the trip, working 29.0 innings over six appearances and limiting opposing hitters to a .190 batting average.
 
The Stars opened a 7-0 lead after four innings despite collecting just five hits through the first four innings. 
 
Jacadi Rivera's sacrifice bunt scored a pair of runs when the Gothic Knights threw the ball away at first and Rivera then scored on another NJCU miscue to open the scoring in the second inning.  Ali Woitovich lined an RBI double to center in the third and then scored on a sacrifice fly by Alfaro.
 
In the fourth, another Gothic Knights' error helped Dominican score a pair of runs when Abby Maike doubled to the gap in right-center pushing across Curran and Rivera.
 
NJCU got on the board in the fifth scoring a pair of unearned runs after throwing error started the frame with Michelle Behrens in the circle but Alfaro lined another two-run double in the sixth to extend the Stars' lead back to seven, 9-2.
 
Behrens picked up the save, working three innings and giving up just two unearned runs on four hits and two walks while striking out four.
 
Alfaro plated another three runs for the Stars, going 1-for-3 to move her team-leading batting average to .528.  The sophomore has knocked in 16 runs on the season and carries an eight-game hitting streak into Friday.