CLERMONT, Florida - The American International College softball team lost two close games and four total in the first two days of its annual Florida trip, falling 5-4 and 9-0 to Saint Thomas Aquinas College on Monday, March 10 and then 11-10 to Queens College and 16-0 to Northwood University on Tuesday, March 11.

AIC starts the season 0-4.

Against the Spartans, AIC scored first just two batters in as Lauryn Ramalho walked and Destiny McGrath doubled her home. Sammy Sanchez and Julia Krijgsman drove in runs in the third, while Brooklyn Cividanes earned her first RBI of the season by being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. The Spartans scored one run in each of the final four innings, however, walking it off in the bottom of the 7th for a 5-4 win.

In the second game, AIC was held to just three hits, with two off the bat of rookie Nevaeh Trejo, in a 9-0 setback.

Queens jumped out to a 3-0 lead on a first-inning home run, and while AIC countered with a two-run Krijgsman single in the home half, the Knights scored four more in the second. AIC turned things around in the third, starting the frame off with five straight hits including Sanchez and Krijgsman RBI doubles and a Trejo RBI single. Trejo later scored on a Ramalho base hit, tying the score 7-7. Queens scored one in the fourth to retake the lead briefly, only to have AIC post a two-out rally, with Krijgsman, Trejo, Morgan Bemont, and Jilien Ayala all singling, the latter two driving in the first two. Queens scored two in the sixth and one in the seventh to regain the lead, and the Yellow Jackets scored one in the seventh on back-to-back hits by Ramalho and McGrath, but McGrath was left at second base to end the game down 11-10.

Against Northwood, Ramalho and Ayala generated AIC's two hits in the defeat.

AIC next plays Slippery Rock and Lake Erie on Thursday, March 13.