Syracuse splits doubleheader with 10-inning victory over Grand Canyon and shutout loss to No. 5 UCLA

Syracuse (4-3) began its doubleheader on Sunday with its most exciting victory of the year, but followed it with its second shutout loss in as many days immediately after.

The Orange opened the day with a 9-8 extra-innings win against the Grand Canyon Antelopes (3-7), a contest in which SU fell behind early but came back to win in 10 innings. The elongated game meant that Syracuse had to start its game against the No. 5 UCLA (8-0) later than scheduled, but Bruins starting pitcher Rachel Garcia made sure that the game ended quickly for the Orange. Garcia was perfect through six innings against Syracuse, ultimately allowing just one hit over seven innings, striking out 10 en route to a 6-0 complete-game victory.

A day after pitching the second perfect game in SU history, Alexa Romero was back starting in the circle for the Orange against the Antelopes. She saw much less success on Sunday, allowing five consecutive runs to GCU in the first four innings before settling down to allow her offense to heat up.

A 5-0 deficit after three and a half innings quickly turned into a 5-4 game after five innings, kicked off by an RBI groundout by Lailoni Mayfield in the fourth. A scoreless top of the fifth by Romero was followed by the Orange’s most successful frame of the day, a three-run bottom half punctuated by a Neli Casares-Maher RBI double that cut the lead to one.

The Antelopes doubled their lead in the top half of the sixth thanks to a Jordon Keeton double to center field, but SU wasn’t done scoring. Bryce Holmgren’s single in the bottom of the seventh, one of her four hits on the day, scored Syracuse’s fifth and sixth runs after an Antelopes error to tie the game at six and send it into extra innings.

The teams traded a run each in both the eighth and ninth innings before a scoreless top half of the tenth by AnnaMarie Gatti led to the deciding inning for the Orange. Casares-Maher, starting the inning on second base due to the NCAA’s tiebreaker rule, reached third base on a bunt by Mayfield and scored the game-winning run during the ensuing at-bat, thanks to a GCU error.

Syracuse’s highest-scoring game of the year didn’t translate into the second game of its doubleheader, thanks to the performance of the redshirt-sophomore, Garcia. Gatti started for SU but had control problems in the loss, going two innings and giving up four runs on five walks and two hits.

The Orange didn’t tally its first hit until the top of the 7th, when senior Sammy Fernandez singled to the left side to serve as SU’s first baserunner of the day. Holmgren was hit by a pitch two batters later and the Orange had a last-gasp rally of sorts in the works, but a groundout by Casares-Maher and a strikeout Rachel Burkhardt, her third of the day, ended any hope of an SU comeback.

Syracuse wraps up its road trip against Cal Poly at 11:30 a.m. on Monday.