NEW YORK — Columbia dropped two games to league-leading Princeton by scores of 8-4 and 7-1 on Saturday at the Columbia Softball Stadium.
 
Prior to the start of the doubleheader, the Lions held a ceremony to honor the senior class from the 2020 season. The six seniors — Erin Gallo, Genny Soltesz, Madison Canby, Amanda Nishihira, Amber Swinarski and Sommer Grzybek — were all in attendance with friends and family. That class graduated Columbia as the winningest class in program history. They never had the chance to play at home as seniors after the 2020 season was canceled in March due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Saturday's festivities brought in a good crowd for what will be Columbia's final series of the season. The energy in the stands seemed to will starting pitcher Raquel Reyes through a bases-loaded jam in the first, but Princeton (24-14-2, 16-4 Ivy) did wind up striking for three runs off a pair of homers in the second.
 
The score remained 3-0 until the bottom of the fifth when the Lions (12-25, 8-12 Ivy) rallied to tie things up. Senior Lauren Apollaro doubled to the opposite field to bring home pinch-runner Kat LoVerde with the first run. Three batters later, Abby Stuart stepped up with two on and two out and rocketed a double to right center. The hit scored Apollaro from second and Maria Pagane from first to make it a 3-3 ball game.
 
Princeton responded in its next turn at-bat on a run-scoring sac fly to left off the bat of Lauren Sablone. Jaden Hill made an outstanding diving catch on the play to prevent any further damage; however, four more Princeton runs came across in the seventh. Columbia got one back in the bottom half and had the tying run on deck with one out, but a double play to second extinguished the threat and gave the Tigers the series-opening win.
 
Game two was scoreless until the Tigers plated three runs, two of which were unearned with the help of a Columbia error in the third. Princeton increased the lead to 4-0 with another unearned run in the fourth.
 
Columbia got one back in the fifth. Caroline Palys led off the inning with a double and Dani Mandichak reached on an error to put runners at the corners with one out. Mandichak was thrown out trying to steal second, but the play did allow Palys to score from third to chip the margin down to 4-1.
 
Princeton got that run back in the sixth and added two insurance runs in the seventh off a home run by Allison Ha. Starting pitcher Alexis Laudenslager went the whole way, striking out 12 while allowing just two hits and an unearned run to improve to 9-7.
 
The series and season finale will take place back at the Columbia Softball Stadium on Sunday. First pitch is set for 12:30 p.m. ET. The Lions will honor their senior class of 2022 prior to the start of the game.

For the latest on the Columbia softball program, follow @CULionsSoftball on Twitter and Instagram, on Facebook at Facebook.com/CULionsSoftball. You can view all the latest with the Lions on the web at GoColumbiaLions.com/Softball.