Rowan forced a winner-take-all game three of the 2026 New Jersey Athletic Conference Softball Championship series on Saturday against TCNJ, taking game two in a 2-1 win in 10 innings. The Profs fell in the day’s opener, 3-2, in eight innings.
The two teams, who have no shortage of extra-inning dramatics in the postseason, will meet tomorrow in Glassboro at 1 p.m. in the third and deciding game of the tournament final with the league’s automatic bid to the Division III Tournament at stake. In a playoff matchup in 2024, Rowan outlasted the Lions in remarkable 20 innings, 2-1.
Game one – TCNJ 3, Rowan 2 (8 innings)
The Lions scored a run in the seventh and the eventual go-ahead run in the eighth to take the day’s first contest.
Kate Evick, who had two hits in the first game, singled in Mikayla Dansky in the first for a quick 1-0 lead. The Lions countered in the second with a run off a sac fly to right.
The Profs’ momentum from a double play to end things in the top the fourth carried over to the bottom half to help cross another run. With pinch runner Gia DiMeglio at second, Zara MacNair delivered a two-out triple to right to put the home squad back on top.
Starter BethAnne Doderer (18-3), who allowed the three runs on seven hits with 5 K’s and two walks, got through two scoreless innings in the fifth and sixth before running into trouble in the seventh. After a leadoff walk and a sacrifice bunt to move the runner to second, the TCNJ’s Olivia Santos tripled in pinch runner Jessica Sclafani with two outs to knot things up at 2-2.
Morgan Leonhauser led off the eighth with a homer to left as the Lions climbed ahead for the first time.
Elizabeth Gosse, who entered in the fifth for TCNJ, yielded one hit over the final 3.2 innings to earn the win in relief.
Game two – Rowan 2, TCNJ 1 (10 innings)
Starter Emily McCutcheon, who was the winning pitcher in that 20-inning affair and set a Division III record for most innings pitched in a single game, saw flashes a déjà vu as the teams went into extra innings for the second-straight game. The senior struck out a season-high nine batters, giving up the one run on six hits and no walks throwing all 10 innings.
Ava Fisher gave the Profs (35-8), who were designated as the visiting team in game two, the lead for good with her RBI single to plate Dansky in the eighth. Fisher, Emma Dobkin, and Carly Polsky each had two hits in the contest.
The game was scoreless until the fifth when the Profs put its first two runners on into scoring position for Polsky, who hit a bullet down the third base line and off the third baseman to allow pinch runner Lauren Foltz to score.
Santos scored on a two-out single from Leonhauser in the bottom of the sixth for TCNJ (26-14) to again tie the teams up.
Scoreless over the next four innings, Dansky reached on an infield bunt single with one down in the 10th. After taking second, she would score on Fisher’s flare to right for the 2-1 lead.
McCutcheon (16-5) battled through an error and single as the Lions had runners in scoring position with two down in the bottom half of the 10th. However, the senior induced a grounder to third for the final out and to force a third showdown to decide the NJAC Championship.