The Georgetown softball team took two out of three games in a Big East home series against rival Syracuse this weekend with an impressive display of offensive power, scoring at least five runs in each game.

The Hoyas (17-26, 7-6 Big East) backed sophomore starting pitcher Lauren O’Leary with 10 runs in game one, scoring six in the sixth inning en route to a 10-5 victory.  O’Leary threw her 14th complete game of the season and earned her 11th win, striking out eight Syracuse players over the course of seven innings.

Down 2-0 in the third, junior second baseman Hannah Slovacek singled in sophomore first baseman Sophia Gargicevich-Almeida and sophomore designated player Megan Hyson to tie the game at two apiece.  Consecutive singles, the latter by junior pinch hitter Rachel Nersesian, followed Slovacek’s to bring in two more runs, giving the Blue and Gray a 4-2 lead.

The Hoyas batted around in the sixth, scoring six runs off a couple of singles, a double, and a bunt, with RBIs from junior Alexandria Anttila, Hyson, and freshmen third baseman Taylor Henry and shortstop Samantha Giovanniello.

“I think that’s what a successful team’s about,” Head Coach Pat Conlan said. “When you can hit one through nine in the order and have a player or two who can come off the bench and hit in a clutch situation, that’s the key to success right there.”

Hyson started game two for Georgetown. After surrendering a first inning home run, she held Syracuse hitless for five consecutive innings, giving up only one more hit — a single in the seventh.

Her two-hitter earned her the complete game win, and her ten strikeouts was her second highest total of the season.

“I thought both [O’Leary and Hyson] threw tremendously well,” Conlan said.  “They were moving the ball around, they hit their spots. Megan threw with tremendous velocity. [They threw] two really really good games.”

The Hoyas scored in the second inning on a sacrifice fly from junior center fielder Elyse Graziano and a single from Giovanniello to take the lead 2-1 and then scored three more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning for a 5-1 victory.

“We’re just doing a nice job of adjusting from pitcher to pitcher, and we’re doing a good job of executing,” Conlan said.  “We’re getting runners on and we’re moving them around the bases.  We’re taking a lot of swings in practice and it’s paying off in games.”

The Hoyas came into Sunday’s game looking for the sweep, and the game seemed to be headed that way as they jumped ahead with five runs in the first inning.

Hyson and junior first baseman Madeleine Giaquinto had back-to-back two-RBI at-bats, and Henry drove in a run in her third consecutive game.

O’Leary started again and did not allow a run until the fourth inning, when Syracuse’s freshman third baseman Corrine Ozanne homered. She hit one out again in the fifth inning, and the Hoyas’ lead was cut to 5-3.

Hyson came on in relief in the sixth inning, but the Orange scored a run in the sixth and seventh to send the game into extra innings.

Neither team could score in the eighth, although the Hoyas managed to get a runner on third that they failed to bring home.

The Syracuse bats exploded in the ninth, scoring four runs on back-to-back homers, including Ozanne’s third of the game, and Georgetown could not come back. The game ended on a double play, although it appeared that the ground ball might have bounced off the batter’s foot before it entered the field.

“It looked like she got hit in the foot with the ball.  That’s what we think, it just wasn’t called,” Conlan said.

The 9-5 loss puts the Hoyas in fifth place in the Big East with nine conference games left to play.

“We’re in a nice position within the conference. We swung the bat pretty well, scored a lot of runs, played good defense, and we got some good pitching in,” Conlan said.  “So overall, it was a successful weekend for us.”

Georgetown will next face Maryland Baltimore County in a nonconference home game Wednesday.  First pitch is scheduled for 2:30 pm.