Hartford, Conn. - The Trinity College softball team scored 15 runs on 13 hits to cruise to a 15-4 victory over the Colby College Mules on Friday in the first game of a New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) East series in Hartford. The Bantams improve to 15-11 on the year and 4-3 in conference play while the Mules fall to 2-20 overall and 0-7 in league action. The two sides pick things back up tomorrow at noon for the first game of a doubleheader. Trinity will honor the members of its senior class beforehand as part of Senior Day.

Trinity was led offensively by senior captain 1B Katie Haghdan (Pelham, N.H.) who went 3-for-3 with three RBIs and a pair of runs scored while first-year RF Samantha Witmer (Drexel Hill, Pa.) also drove in three runs on a 2-for-3 performance at the dish. Senior captain 2B Michelle Treglia (Fairfield, Conn.) added two RBIs in a 2-for-3 effort to go along with two runs scored as six Bantams, including senior LF Erica Merullo (Lynnfield, Mass.), junior C Nicole Towner (Erie, Colo.), rookie DP Cassidy Schiff (Darien, Conn.) and rookie 3B Kaitlyn DeCapua (Milford, Mass.), all scored mutiple times on the day. Colby first-year Hailey Rohall (Weston, Mass.) led the charge for the visitors, driving in a pair of runs on a two-run double in the third.

Trinity senior captain Rachael Smith (Winchester, Mass.) picked up her ninth win of the year in the circle, allowing just four hits while striking out four. Smith ran into some trouble early but settled in, retiring six-straight Colby hitters to end the game. The Mules got on the board first in the top of the second when Kathleen Mason (East Sandwich, Mass.) doubled to the right-centerfield gap to bring home Wiley Holton (Dedham, Mass.). The Bantams, however, answered in the home half when Haghdan plated two runners on an infield hit that went awry for the Mules.

Rohall's two-run double in the third, coupled with a run-scoring groundout off the bat of Holton, gave Colby a 4-2 lead, but the Bantams responded in a big way with seven runs in the bottom of the third to open up a 9-4 lead. Witmer started things with a triple to right that scored Treglia before junior SS Courtney Erickson (Everett, Mass.) brought home Witmer on a base knock to left. Treglia and DeCapua later added RBI-doubles while Haghdan nearly hit a two-run homer, but the ball glanced off the top of the right field fence and landed in play, forcing Haghdan to settle for a run-scoring triple instead.

The Bantams scored six more in the fourth, highlighted by an RBI-double from Schiff, a two-run double off the bat of Witmer, and run-scoring singles by Merullo and Treglia to account for the final score of 15-4. Smith retired the side in order in the top of the fifth to help lift Trinity to the 15-4 mercy rule victory.