ALFRED, N.Y. -- The third-seeded Saxons from Alfred University won a low-scoring playoff game on Saturday afternoon, defeating No. 6 Elmira College, 2-0, in the first round of the 2021 Empire 8 Conference Championship.

Alfred (28-8) advances to the double-elimination portion of the E8 tournament and will face the No. 2 seed, Russell Sage College, in its next game on Tuesday, May 11.

Making its first appearance in the Empire 8 Championship since 2013, Elmira (6-21) held its own in a battle against one of the top pitchers in the conference, Jessica Wilcox. Despite taking the hard-fought loss, Ally Barr '21 matched Wilcox with five consecutive scoreless innings to begin Saturday's contest.

Barr retired the Saxons in order in the first, third, and fourth innings. The Pine City, New York, native did a fantastic job of working around a one-out double and two-out infield single in the bottom of the second, as she stranded both runners to preserve the shutout. EC's only blemish in the fifth was an error, but Barr induced a pair of ground outs to keep the score level at 0-0.

The Saxons did all of their damage in the sixth. Ashley Lugo and Alyssa Guitron, the top two batters in the AU lineup, reached on a pair of singles to lead off the frame. Following a sac bunt to move both into scoring position, clean-up hitter Mya Wells drove in Lugo and Guitron with a grounder up the middle.

Elmira's only run-scoring opportunities were in the fourth and fifth innings. With two outs in the fourth, Alex Brockhuizen '22 lined the ball into center for the team's first hit. Following a walk to Hannah Flagg '24, Wilcox caught Janie Kempf '21 looking at an outside pitch for strike three. The fifth ended in a similar fashion after Barr and Paige Cring '21 logged back-to-back two-out singles, as Wilcox froze Felicity Brockhuizen '22 to halt Elmira's momentum.

News and Notes

• The Soaring Eagles made their sixth all-time appearance in the Empire 8 tournament on Saturday and their first since 2013.
• Barr pitched her 13th complete game of 2021, the most by an Elmira pitcher since Alex Puglisi '14 had 15 in the spring of 2014.
• Barr moved into ninth place on the program's single-season leaderboard with 119.2 innings pitched, just one-third of an inning more than Puglisi had during that 2014 campaign.
• Alex Brockhuizen recorded her 17th hit of the season, tied for third-most on the team.
• Flagg's walk was her 13th, tied with Kempf for the team lead this season.