Winter Park, FL – Senior righthander Alex Hill (Parsippany, NJ, Parsippany Hills) tossed a nine-inning shutout in the first game and reached a milestone in the second with her 1,000th career strikeout as No. 2 Montclair State split a pair of nine-inning contests at the Rebel Spring Games on Thursday.

Brooke Powers (Newton, NJ, Pope John XXIII) belted a three-run homer for MSU (5-1), which scored six times in the ninth for a 6-0 win over Washington College (MD) before falling to Thomas More in nine innings, 6-4.

Hill, who later in the day became the 15th pitcher in Division III history to record 1,000 strikeouts, pitched her fourth shutout in as many starts as she allowed six hits, struck out 12 and walked one. Despite the performance Hill found herself trading zeroes with the Shorewomen's Kristin Cooper, who was equally effective allowing six hits with nine strikeouts and four walks.

Scoreless into the ninth with the tiebreaker rule in effect, Melissa Rustemeyer (Colonia, NJ, Colonia) sacrifices Dana Amato (Hillsdale, NJ, Pascack Valley) to third. Melany Zeller (Bloomfield, NJ, Bloomfield) then bounced a ball to shortstop that was misplayed allowing Amato to score what turned out to be the game-winning run. MSU loaded the bases and another error sent Zeller home for a 2-0 MSU lead. Sophomore Jaclyn Allegretta (Hackensack, NJ, Hackensack) followed with a sacrifice fly before Powers blasted a home run for the 6-0 advantage.

Hill set the order down in the bottom of the ninth to preserve the victory, the 91st of her career and her 48th career shutout. Hill also had two hits as did freshman rightfielder Lauren Guillen (Secaucus, NJ, Secaucus).

Montclair State would grab a 1-0 lead in the first on a sacrifice fly by Hill however the Saints answered with two runs in the top of the second, the first allowed by Montclair State this season. Thomas More added two more runs in the third to take a 4-1 lead before the Red Hawks struck back in the fourth with three runs to tie the game.

Hill walked with one out and Tara Petrucelli (Nutley, NJ, Nutley) singled with two outs before a walk to Zeller loaded the bases. Allegretta singled to center scoring one run and a two-run double by Powers knotted the game at 4-4.

That's the way the game would stay until the top of the ninth when the Saints took advantage of the tiebreaker rule and scored twice as Ashley Feltcher plated the go-ahead runs with a double.

Hill, who entered the game in the second inning pitched 7 2/3 innings and struck out 14 to raise her career total 1,009. She gave up four runs and four hits.

Powers had two hits for Montclair State.

The Red Hawks conclude their Rebel Spring Games appearance on Friday, March 14 with a 9:00 am game against Hiram College, a change in the original schedule followed by a 1:00 pm matchup with Simpson College.