The Dominican University softball team began their annual trip to the Spring Games in Clermont, Florida, dropping their opener to the Elizabethtown College Blue Jays, 7-0, before putting five runs in the fifth-inning of a 5-4, come-from-behind win over the University of Northwestern Eagles.  With the split, the Stars move to 2-4 on the season after going 1-3 at the Rochester Dome Tournament hosted by Luther College last weekend.  Dominican will return to the diamonds in Florida on Sunday, D'Youville College and the College of St. Scholastica at the Hancock Athletic Complex.
 
"Our execution was poor early in the day," said Cristina Lukas, the Stars' head softball coach. "We were making some defensive mistakes that ended up putting us in the hole in both games. It took us a while to get our bats going.  We had a lot of runners on early, but stranded them. Luckily, we finally strung together a bunch of hits in the second game. We need to carry that momentum into tomorrow's games."
 
Game One: Elizabethtown 7, Dominican 0
 
The Stars managed just six hits, seven baserunners, all game in a 7-0 loss to the Elizabethtown College Blue Jays.
 
The Blue Jays struck for three runs in the top of the first off of Dominican senior Cat Klostermann who fell to 0-2 in her second start of the season.  The Blue Jays managed nine hits, including one extra-base hit, scoring six earned runs over the Klostermann's six innings of work.
 
Klostermann worked into her first spot of trouble in the top of the first, giving up back-to-back-to-back singles after two were out, scoring the first three runs of the ballgame.  The Blue Jays put up two more runs in the top of the second, stringing together three hits and one Dominican error to open a 5-0 lead after two innings.
 
Single runs for the Blue Jays in the fourth and seventh rounded out the day's scoring with Dominican missing an early opportunity to claw back into the game in the bottom of the third when Hannah Gordon led off with a single.  After a pair of pop outs, Megan Hufnagle and Zoe Deeringer picked up two-out singles before the Blue Jays escaped unscathed when Candace Kipp popped out to end the frame.
 
The Stars left on two more runners in the bottom of the fourth before going down in order in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.
 
Gordon and Delaney McRiley managed two hits apiece in the losing effort for Dominican.
 
Game Two: Dominican 5, University of Northwestern 4
 
After the Eagles scored three in the bottom of the first and extended their lead to 4-0 after four innings, the Stars rallied for five runs in the top of the fifth.  Julia Orozco sparked the rally with a leadoff triple and scored when Alyssa Stuart singled on the next pitch.  After a walk and a single loaded the bases, the Stars scratched across their second run of the frame on a wild pitch.  Makayla Barnes pushed across the third run of the inning when she grounded out to second.  The Stars then evened the score thanks to a passed ball.
 
McRiley restarted the rally with a double to the gap in right-center and later scored what proved to be the game-winning run when Gordon singled an out later.
 
Dominican's Allyson Dilday then worked around a leadoff single in the fifth and an error in the sixth before setting the Eagles down in the seventh to nail down the victory.
 
Dilday worked a complete game, pitching around five hits, a walk and four Dominican errors to improve to 2-2 on the season.