WORCESTER, Mass. – Host Clark University split its home-opening NEWMAC doubleheader with Wellesley College on Friday afternoon, winning game one, 9-1 and dropping the nightcap 6-1 on O’Brien Field.
 
The Cougars move to 10-2 on the season, while Wellesley evens its record at 2-2 in advance of its spring break trip to Florida which begins on Saturday.
 
In both games, the team that got the better pitching performance got the victory. That was the case in game one for Clark, who got a complete game, three-hit outing from junior hurler Sarah Carter (Worcester, Mass.). After yielding a leadoff homerun to Jessie Haladyna (St. John’s Fla.), Carter settled down and allowed only two hits the rest of the way, retiring the last seven batters she faced.
 
Darcey Kurashige-Elliott (Berkeley, Calif.) did a great deal of the damage for the Cougars offensively, going 3-for-3 with three RBI and a long homerun to left field. Chelsea Proulx (Franklin, N.H.) actually tied the game in the bottom of the first when she singled to left, scoring Mel Melkonian (Worcester, Mass.).
 
Clark broke the game open with a four-run third inning, highlighted by Kurashige-Elliott’s roundtripper and accompanied by a run scored on a passed ball and a throwing error.
 
The Cougars would score two more in the fifth on Wellesley errors, and then grabbed a game-ending eight run lead in the bottom of the sixth when run scoring singles from Kurashige-Elliott and Stefanie Kettenacker (Hastings-on-the-Hudson, N.Y.) gave Clark a 9-1 lead.
 
Game two started off as a pitching duel between Cougar sophomore Meghan Lennon (Charlton, Mass.) and Wellesley Freshman Lauren Goldfarb (Albuquerque, N.M.). Heading into the sixth inning, Wellesley had just three just and Clark had just one.
 
Things all changed in the sixth when the Blue chased Lennon after connecting on five straight singles, giving Wellesley a 2-0 lead on an Alex Warren (Delta, B.C.) base knock.
 
Mara Blesoff (Oak Park, Ill.) drove in two more on a single off of reliever Nicole Meuse (Hudson, Mass.) and then a Haladyna base hit drove in another pushing the Wellesley lead to 5-0.
 
Clark cut the edge to 5-1 in the bottom of the frame on an RBI groundout by Lauren Blake (Oakland, Maine) but could get no closer. Wellesley tacked on an insurance run in the seventh on back-to-back doubles by Sinta Cebrian (Seattle, Wash.) and Warren.
 
The Cougars return to the diamond on Saturday when they host Bridgewater State beginning at 12 noon.  Wellesley returns to action on Sunday at the National Training Center in Clermont, FL, where they will compete during Spring Break.  The Blue open with a 3:30pm game against Western Connecticut State, followed by a 5:30 matchup with Morrisville State.