WORCESTER -- A Tuesday afternoon doubleheader against Wellesley on Rooftop Field ended with a split with NEWMAC foe Wellesley for the WPI softball team. 
 
A double from Riley O'Brien (Wynantskill, NY), her eighth of the season, brought home the game-winner for WPI (12-10, 3-5 NEWMAC) in the sixth inning of action in game one while Wellesley (11-10-1, 6-4) earned a hard-fought split with a 7-4 extra-inning victory. 
 
Naomi Boldebuck (Billerica, MA) earned the W in game one, finishing with a complete game, one-hitter throwing all seven innings of action and sitting down 20 of the 24 batters she faced on the day to earn her eighth win of the season. After a thunderstorm in between games, Boldebuck was joined on the mound in the nightcap by both Kaitlyn Barr (Grosse Pointe Woods, MI) and Sofia Knopf (Plymouth, MA) but the trio was outlasted by the Blue in the extra-inning outing.
 
WPI only amassed four hits in the first game of the day with O'Brien's heroics coming as her lone hit of the game. Emma Nagy (Monroe, WA) also blasted her seventh roundtripper of the season in the second inning of action. The Engineers put together a six-hit game two, as the bats got hot early, but Wellesley was able to outdo WPI in the eighth inning to steal the second game of the day.
 
GAME ONE 
The Blue got on the board first when, in the second inning, they moved an inning open walk around the basepaths using multiple sacrifice bunts and hits to score the first run of the day. But WPI answered back in the bottom half of the inning to even the score at one-apiece as Nagy blasted a solo shot to left field to start the inning off. 
 
Boldebuck shut down the Blue offense for the remainder of the game as WPI had a productive sixth inning starting off with a Destiny Lum (Kahalu'u, HI) double to right centerfield to get her in scoring position. One batter later, O'Brien sent her shot to left to bring home Lum for the eventual game-winner as Boldebuck sat down Wellesley 1-2-3 in the top of the seventh to earn the win. 
 
GAME TWO 
WPI got on the board first in the second game of the day. Lucy Latour (North Dighton, MA) started the game off with a walk and immediately stole second base. Virginia McKinney (Larchmont, NY) also drew a walk and Sandy Fairbairn (Norton, MA) moved the duo into scoring position, setting up Lum for a bases clearing double to left center to make it a 2-0 game. Lum would come around to score behind a Ariana Kreuzer (Walpole, MA) single to center to put the Engineers up 3-0 after one inning. 
 
In the sixth inning, the Wellesley bats came alive as the Blue put together a four-run, four-hit inning to take the slight advantage, but in the bottom half of the frame, O'Brien came through once again for WPI. In a deja vu-like situation, O'Brien doubled home Lum, this time to even the score at 4-all and send the game into extra innings. 
 
In the top half of the eighth, with the international tiebreaker rule in effect, Wellesley was able to undermine the Engineers and put a trio of runs on the board to gain a 7-4 advantage. In the bottom of the inning, O'Brien was able to earn a two-out walk to get WPI one big swing away from tying the game, but the Engineers were not able to get a run across as Wellesley took the second game of the day. 
 
UP NEXT 
WPI is in the midst of a busy week as the Engineers return to action in the middle of a five-game homestand at Rooftop Field on Wednesday, April 16 at 4:30pm against Simmons. Wellesley has a few days off and will return to the field at home against Babson College on Friday, April 18 with a doubleheader beginning at 3pm.