GREENVILLE, Pa. – The Thiel College softball team lost a pair of games to the Penn State Fayette Nittany Lions on Tuesday at Tomcat Park. The Tomcats lost 6-2 in the first game before falling 6-4 in eight innings in the second game.
 
Scoreless through the first five innings of the first game, PSU Fayette plated four runs in the sixth inning and followed up with two more runs in the seventh.
 
The Tomcats scored a pair of runs in their last at-bat. Kayla Roddy (Cincinnati, Ohio/Oak Hills) and Melina Bufalini (Aliquippa, Pa./Hopewell) both hit RBI-singles.
 
Dani Ficeti (Greenville, Pa./Greenville) went 3-for-3 in the first game while Abby Rottman (Hilliards, Pa./Moniteau) went 2-for-3 with a double.
 
Roddy, who struck out eight batters, absorbed the loss.
 
Trailing 2-1 heading into the bottom of the third in the second game, Casey Buechel (Allison Park, Pa./Deer Lakes) gave the Tomcats a one-run lead (3-2) when she hit a 2-RBI single to center field.
 
The Nittany Lions surged ahead 4-3 in the top of the fifth, but the Tomcats got that run back in the bottom half of the inning when Riley Ladd (Mineral Ridge, Ohio/Mineral Ridge) hit a sacrifice fly to center field, allowing Emmalee Sheeler (Rixford, Pa./Otto-Eldred) to score.
 
After scoreless sixth and seventh innings, the game was decided in the eighth frame using the international tiebreaker rule. Starting with a runner on second base, Brianna Hunt drove in the game-winning run for the Nittany Lions on a double down the right field line. Emily Conklin followed with an insurance run on a groundout later in the eighth.
 
Kylee Yothers (Indian Head, Pa./Connellsville Area) and Ficeti both went 3-for-5 in the second game.
 
Freshman Lauren Bonner (Hermitage, Pa./Reynolds) fell to 3-1 on the season with the loss. She struck out two batters through eight innings.
 
The Tomcats (5-3) are scheduled to host the La Roche Redhawks on Saturday at Tomcat Park. The first game of the non-conference doubleheader is set to begin at 1 p.m.