The softball team opened play up north with a three-game series against Amherst over the weekend, dropping two of three to its Little Three rival. Wesleyan fell at home 4-1 on Friday and lost the first game of a road doubleheader on Saturday before coming from behind to take the nightcap, 5-4. The team returns to action this weekend with a three-game series against Middlebury.

Wesleyan had swept Amherst in 2007 and taken two out of three in 2008, but this year proved kinder to the Lord Jeffs. Meaghan Dendy ’10 got the start on Friday and kept Amherst at bay for six of her seven innings of work. The third inning proved costly, however, as the Lord Jeffs scored four runs on four hits and a walk in the frame on a two-run home run and two-run double, the latter coming with two outs. Wesleyan had jumped on the board in the first, sparked by a leadoff single by Dendy. Julia Chamberlin ’09 sacrificed Dendy to second, and catcher Taylor Zavadsky ’10 followed with a double to left field to score Dendy.

The Cardinals did not get a runner past second base the rest of the contest, however, as Amherst pitcher Alex Chang-Graham ’11—who blanked the Cardinals 1-0 in Middletown last season—allowed just four more hits the rest of the way. Dendy did a solid job keeping the Jeffs at bay, stranding 14 Amherst runners in the seven-inning affair.

The teams were back in action Saturday afternoon in a twinbill at Amherst. Chang-Graham took the ball for the Lord Jeffs in the opener and scattered eight hits to improve to 3-0 in her career against the Cards. Wesleyan again jumped on the board first, as first baseman Talia Bernstein ’11 smacked a two-run shot with two outs in the first to put the visitors ahead. Wesleyan padded its lead in the second on a two-out RBI single from Dendy, who went 5-for-8 in the series. Amherst tied the score in the bottom of the inning on an RBI single and two-out, two-run triple, but Wesleyan regained the lead in the third on a solo home run from Bernstein to move ahead 4-3. Pitcher Chelsea Swete ’11 kept Amherst off the board for the next two innings, but a three-run shot in the sixth put the Lord Jeffs ahead for good, 6-4.

Wesleyan again drew first blood in the second game, as third baseman Alexis Kral ’12 singled home shortstop Molly O’Connell ’09 for a 1-0 second-inning lead. Amherst, however, jumped ahead 2-1 on a two-out single in the bottom of the inning and tacked on an unearned run in the third. The Cardinals got one back in the sixth on Bernstein’s third home run of the twinbill but entered the final inning down 3-2.

With their backs against the wall, the Cardinals broke out for three runs in the seventh on a bases-loaded single by Dendy, who has recorded a hit in every game so far this season, and a two-run single by Chamberlin, both off of Chang-Graham. The Lord Jeffs added one in the bottom of the inning to cut Wesleyan’s lead to 5-4, but Dendy recorded her sixth strikeout of the contest to strand the tying run on second and salvage a doubleheader split.

Bernstein became only the fourth player in Wesleyan softball history to hit two home runs in one game, with the most recent being Jo Brownson ’08, who smacked two round-trippers in an 8-2 NESCAC tournament victory over Trinity last May. Bernstein also became the first Cardinal softball player to hit three home runs in one day.

Wesleyan now sits at 6-10 overall and 1-2 in NESCAC West play. This weekend, divisional foe Middlebury, which has lost five of its last six against the Cardinals, comes to Middletown for a three-game series, including a doubleheader Saturday and single game Sunday. Last season, Wesleyan swept a tripleheader at Middlebury, winning by scores of 10-4, 7-1 and 5-1.