SALEM, Va. -- Delayed by one day because of rain, the 2019 Fredonia softball season began Saturday with two games at Mountain Mash. Following a hard-fought 2-0 loss to two-time defending champ Virginia Wesleyan in the opener, the Blue Devils lost to Kean 9-1 in the second game.

In the season opener, the Blue Devils fell to the Virginia Wesleyan Marlins and left-hander Hanna Hull, 2-0. The two-time National Fastpitch Coaches Association NCAA Division III Player of the Year, Hull two-hit the Blue Devils with 18 strikeouts, giving her 30 strikeouts in 11 innings pitched. Fredonia junior right-hander Katie Yudin was the losing pitcher.

The Marlins improved to 3-0 -- with shutouts in all three games -- in their quest to win their third straight national title. They opened the season at No. 1 in the NFCA pre-season poll. "I'm really proud of my kids," Fredonia Head Coach Tony Ciccarello said after the close loss. "They could have blown us out in the first inning, but we made plays. They (his players) hung tough and didn't crumble."

Game two featured Fredonia's first run of the season, an unearned tally in the first inning, but that was all the Blue Devils could muster. Sam Seegar was tagged with the loss while Jackie Riley was the winner for Kean, which improved to 4-0.

Devils in the Details

GAME ONE

• Yudin pitched out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the first with a little help from her friends. After catching a flyout, right fielder Alyssa Piniewski gunned down a runner at the plate to complete a double play and end the inning. Blue Devil catcher Eva FitzSimmons applied the tag.
• Hull struck out the first four batters she faced before Yudin sent a long fly to right for the second out of the second inning.
• Wildness plagued Yudin in the third inning. She issued four walks in the frame, including the first to Ariana Rolle to lead off the inning. Rolle stole second, went to third on a throwing error, and scored on a wild pitch to put the Marlins on top, 1-0. Yudin escaped further trouble with a called strikeout for the third out with the bases loaded.
• Cassie Herman got Fredonia's first hit of the season, a single, with two outs in the fourth.
• After issuing a walk to start the fifth, Yudin was lifted in favor of Seegar, who had opened the game as Fredonia's designated player. Seegar pitched around another walk and a stolen base.
• The Blue Devils threatened in the fifth by putting the first two runners on base. Nicole Kumro walked and Maddy O'Heir beat out a bunt for a single. But Hanna buckled down by striking out the next three Blue Devils -- and eight of the last nine batters she faced.
• Virginia Wesleyan added an insurance run in the sixth inning on a walk, a sacrifice bunt, a single, and a wild pitch.

GAME TWO

• Fredonia's first run of the season came in the top of the first. Karli Murray led off the game with a single and scored later in the inning when the Kean second baseman misplayed a grounder off the bat of FitzSimmons.
• Kean scored an unearned run in the last of the first, then added three in the third, two in the fourth, one in the fifth, and two in the sixth off reliever Delana Thomas. That gave the Cougars an eight-run lead and invoked the mercy rule.
• FitzSimmons had a double in the fourth. It was Fredonia's first extra-base hit of the season.
• Back-to-back singles by the Piniewski twins, Alyssa and Amber, and a walk to Murray loaded the bases with one out in the fifth, to no avail.

QUICK FACTS

• Mountain Mash was played at the Moyer Sports Complex and was co-hosted by Roanoke College and Virginia Wesleyan.
• Fredonia freshmen seeing their first collegiate action: Kumro, O'Heir, Murray, Thomas, Marisa Sultana, and Jules Vassallo, who singled in the second inning of Game 2 in her first trip to the plate.. 
• Virginia Wesleyan was 55-3 and Kean 26-12 last season.

WHAT'S NEXT?

• The Blue Devils are headed to The Spring Games, headquartered in Clermont, Fla., to play 12 games in seven days, starting next Saturday and running through Fri., March 15. The Blue Devils are scheduled to play Elizabethtown, Simpson, Concordia-Chicago, Scranton, Ursinus, Utica, Lasell, Lake Forest, Wisconsin-Superior, Pitt.-Greensburg, Ohio Wesleyan, and the U.S. Coast Guard.