NORTHAMPTON, Mass.  -  Coast Guard softball earned a pair of important NEWMAC wins at Smith College on Thursday afternoon with a 4-0 defeat of the Pioneers in game one and a come-from-behind 8-7 win in the second contest. The wins mark Coast Guard's first doubleheader sweep of the season.

Smith moves to 3-15 in conference play (7-27 overall) following their second straight twinbill loss. They'll look ahead to hosting Springfield College (11-5 NEWMAC, 26-10 overall) tomorrow, May 2nd, for their final games of the regular season. The teams split last season's meeting, which was the Pioneers' first win versus Springfield since the 2014 season.

Junior pitcher Dana Walker (Macon, Ga.) was key for the Bears in both contests. The right-hander pitched 13.0 innings and allowed a combined three runs while racking up 11 strikeouts on the day between the two wins, and produced a pair of clutch at-bats that were integral to the comeback effort in game two.

Mack Murnane (Wilmington, N.C.) put Coast Guard ahead in the first inning of game one in loud fashion, smacking her second career home run over the left-field fence to give her team an immediate 1-0 advantage. The Bears added three more in the fifth inning, with freshman Madeline Kibler (Effingham, Ill.) scoring the first run after senior captain Veronica Krystofik (Colchester, Conn.) drove her in from third base and moved junior Maura Murphy (Bristow, Va.) over to the three-bag with a well-placed bunt single. Krystofik stole second base before Murphy scored on an RBI ground out by sophomore Abriana Schmutz (Marysville, Ohio). Murnane laced a double to center field in the next at-bat to drive in the Bears' senior leader.

Smith had little luck getting anything going against Walker, who pitched her fourth complete game shutout of the season to improve to 11-7. The junior allowed five hits and a walk while sending down seven Pioneers in her first appearance of the day. The seventh K put her in rare air as just the fifth pitcher in program history to reach 300 strikeouts.

Murnane picked up two of the Bears' seven total hits in the first contest, her fifth multi-hit game this season and her fourth with two. The performance also marked her third multi-RBI game.

Game two started much differently as Smith struck first with a five-run second inning. The first two Pioneers scored on back-to-back RBI singles with runners on second and third before an infield error allowed the third to score. The fourth run scored after an errant throw home from the outfield following a fly out before one more RBI single made it five.

Coast Guard was able to get on the board in the bottom half of the second thanks to aggressive baserunning by senior captain Natalie Beck (Billings, Mont.). Beck reached on an error and then stole second to put herself in scoring position, and Schmutz did the deed of bringing her around on a single to center field; the sophomore scored as well thanks to a line drive dingle by Kibler through the right side.
 
The Pioneers took those runs back in the bottom of the fourth, scoring two runners from second and third on an infield error with two outs, but Walker brought Smith's lead back down to three in the top sixth by driving in freshmen Hayden Reilly (Prosper, Tex.) and Olivia Garcia (Oxford, Conn.) with a double to center field.

Walker, who entered in the middle of the second inning, did her best to keep the Pioneers within range between the third and sixth to give her team a chance in the seventh. Coast Guard had runners on first and second base with two outs before starting their rally. A single to left field by junior Bridget Bartz (Arlington, Va.) brought Schmutz in from second base, and another single by Reilly in the next at-bat drove in Kibler from second to make it a 7-6 game while she and Bartz took up second and third on the throw home.

Walker then stepped up to the plate and blooped a single onto the grass behind first base; Bartz scored without issue, and Reilly utilized aggressive baserunning to score from second base to give the Bears an 8-7 lead. Walker shut down the Pioneers in the bottom half with three groundouts to secure the second win of the day for the Bears. She threw 6.0 innings and allowed four hits and three runs (none earned) while adding four strikeouts to her day.

Walker, Bartz, and Schmutz combined to record seven of Coast Guard's ten hits in the second game. Walker's two knocks marked just the third multi-hit day of the pitcher's career, while her four RBIs set a new career-high. Bartz went 3-for-4 for her fifth multi-hit game and second three-hit game of the season, while Schmutz recorded a two-hit performance for her team-leading 11th multi-hit game and 12th straight game with a hit. Murnane also recorded a hit to extend her own hitting streak to nine games.

Bears softball closes out their regular season tomorrow with another NEWMAC doubleheader against MIT. The conference's reigning champions will bring a 15-3 league record (24-9 overall) into what will also be their final regular season contests. The teams split last season's meeting in Cambridge.