DE LAND, Fla. -- Bridgette Rooney's two-out grand slam in the top of the seventh inning made a winner out of Katie Lew and lifted the Cornell softball team to its first season-opening win since 2014 when it topped Bethune-Cookman 5-3. The Big Red dropped the second game 11-1 in five innings to Drexel on Friday afternoon at the Hatter Classic.

Game One
Rooney, who set a Cornell freshman record for home runs in a season in 2017, got the 2018 campaign off to a great start to put a bow on a fantastic effort in the circle by Lew. 

Trailing 2-1 and down to its final out, the Big Red's Madeline Avery drew a walk before Rooney's go-ahead blast to right-center for her first hit of the season. Sophomore Kate Jencarelli got the rally started with a pinch-hit single before classmate Sarah Murray made it two hits in a row. 

Cornell staked itself to a lead by scoring a run in the second. Tori Togashi, who went 2-for-2, drew a walk, was advanced to second with a bunt and scored on a double down the leftfield line by Erin Rockstroh. 

Bethune-Cookman took its first lead an inning later, plating two on a single, a stolen base, a triple and a sacrifice fly.

Lew scattered nine hits and a pair of walks to pick up the complete game victory. The Big Red played a clean game, not committing an error and walking just two batters in its first game of the year.

Game Two
Cornell got on the board with a run in the top of the first, but after answering an ultimately going ahead, Drexel used a four-run fourth inning to take control for good before Taylor Lee hit a walk-off grand slam to end it for the Dragons.

The Big Red scored an unearned run in the first on Bridgette Rooney's RBI double to to left-center on a full count, scoring Sarah Murray. It was Rooney's fifth RBI of the day. The Dragons answered with a run in the bottom of the first and went ahead with two more in the second. Linda Rush slammed a three-run homer in the fourth to highlight its four-run frame that put the game out of reach.

Game two had no resemblance to game one, as the Big Red committed three errors and offered seven free passes, with six of the runs coming as unearned. Lisa Nelson took the loss after allowing six hits and five earned runs over 3.1 innings, while Maddie Orcutt surrendered the final home run, but no earned runs in her 1.1 innings of work.