Vestal, N.Y. – The fifth-seeded UMBC Softball team found themselves with an early lead, but could not hold it, as fourth-seeded Stony Brook rallied for a 3-1 win in the first round of the America East Tournament on the campus of Binghamton University.

UMBC (24-30) jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the first after a Tori Alexander (Woodbridge, Va./Woodbridge Senior) sacrifice fly scored Morgan Peyou (Mercer Island, Wash/Mercer Island). Peyou reached on a one-out bunt-single, moved to second a wild pitch, and advanced to third on a Carly Lesko (New Milford, N.J./New Milford) single.

Stony Brook (25-22-2) tied the game in the bottom of the second on a couple bloop-singles sandwiched around a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly. The Seawolves would take the lead in the fourth when a leadoff single to right field got away from the Retriever defense allowing the runner to reach third on the error. UMBC appeared to throw out the runner at third on the play, but it was ruled that third baseman Kaelin Jackson (Export, Pa./Franklin Regional) obstructed with the runner while fielding the relay throw. The runner would later score on a squeeze bunt to put SBU up 2-1.

UMBC got a leadoff triple from Peyou in the sixth, but a grounder to third and two pop ups thwarted the Retriever attempt to tie. Stony Brook would make the Retrievers pay for failing to cash in the top half by getting three straight, two-out singles, in the bottom half of the inning to extend the lead to 3-1, and UMBC went down in order in the seventh.

Senior Bridget O'Malley (Baltimore, Md./Seton Keough) moved ahead of assistant coach Julia Culotta  for eighth place all-time in games played at 208.

The Retrievers return to action at 4 p.m. today when they play the loser of the Albany-Hartford game in an elimination match-up.