MELBOURNE, Fla. – The Embry-Riddle softball team improved its overall record to 9-3 on Friday with a 6-4 win over Florida Tech (13-5) at Nancy Bottge Field. Playing their first road game of the year, the Eagles held off a late rally by the Panthers to earn a win in the first game of the series, which continues with a noon doubleheader on Saturday.
 
The Eagles got their offense going early with two runs in the first. Anna Battison drew a lead-off walk, stole second and came around to score when Kailah Rain doubled to left center. After moving to third on a wild pitch, Rain scored easily on Racquelli Bianco's double to left field.
 
In the second, Natalie Morales reached on a two-out double, moved up on a Battison single and capitalized on a Panther throwing error to extend the Eagle lead to 3-0.
 
Bianco led off the third inning with a shot to left field that allowed her to get all the way to third for her first triple of the year. Kassidy Simons, who got her third start of the season in the circle, helped her own cause by driving in Bianco with a single to right center.
 
Another extra base hit accounted for the first Eagle baserunner in the fourth as Gabriella Obia doubled to left field and later scored on Rain single. Battison, who reached on an error, also crossed the plate, thanks to a Bianco sacrifice fly to widen the gap to 6-0 for the Blue and Gold.
 
In the bottom of the fourth, the Panthers started to get to Simons, who in the previous three innings had only allowed two baserunners. After adding two runs in the fourth, Florida Tech scored two more in the fifth and had runners in scoring position with two outs, but Simons got Ashley Montion to fly out to the left fielder in foul territory to end the threat.
 
The Panthers also got an effective pitching performance from Amanda Kahn who entered the game in relief of Rachel Pence in the fifth as she faced the minimum through the last three innings to keep her team in the game.
 
Florida Tech got two runners on in the sixth and again in the seventh, but Simons was able to induce a groundout to end each inning on the way to earning her first complete game win of the season. The freshman gave up 10 hits and struck out seven to improve to 4-1 on the year.
 
Pence surrendered six runs on eight hits and struck out eight while walking one batter in four innings of work to move to 11-3 overall.
 
"Overall, I'm proud of our team today," ERAU Head Coach Kelsi Dunne said. "Our whole goal today was to come out and focus on our process. We did a pretty good job of filling our process board in the first four innings. I was very proud that we came out confident and attacked on offense by scoring first. Kailah and Racquelli had clutch RBI's and were seeing the ball well all day. Kassidy had a quality game in the circle and we achieved our goal of leadoff outs and even better - she had no walks. We will have to continue to stay focused on our process in the next two games because FIT is a quality program."
 
Rain and Bianco each had two RBIs on the day with Rain going 2-for-4 with a double and a stolen base, and Bianco going 2-for-3 with a double and a triple.