Lakewood, N.J. - Mother Nature brought the heat on Saturday afternoon, and so did conference-rival Felician University, as the visiting Golden Falcons soared into GCU's SEI Investments Field and snared two wins vs. host-Georgian Court University, 4-3 and 9-5, to secure the crucial Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) softball sweep.

Felician, winners of four straight, improves to 16-15 on the year (13-3 CACC) while the Lions drop to 20-15 (11-5 CACC).

In the opener, the home team plated the initial run of the contest when the hot bat of Mikaela Power pushed across Cailtin Hughes with an RBI single to center. The advantage would hold until the top of the third when Felician fleeced the Lions with an unorthodox trio of tallies, courtesy of a ribbie ground out, a run-inducing GCU fielding blunder, and a wild pitch.

Another not-often-seen run-scoring scenario followed in the Felician fourth when the Golden Falcons swiped their fourth-and-final tally via the very uncommon sacrifice fly pop out to second base.

Georgian Court continued to battle as reigning National Player of the Week, Samantha Reilly, launched her conference-leading 16th home run down the left-field line to inch the Lions to within two (4-2). Elisa Lopez scorched a single through the left side to bring around pinch-runner Cassandra Varvaro in the sixth to make it a one-run game.

After holding off Felician in the top of the seventh, GCU had the visitors on the ropes in the bottom half of the stanza. With runners on second and third and two outs, Lopez screamed a laser beam of a line drive destined for the left field grass. However, a lunging Mia Montoya snared the shot at the hot corner to save the game for the Golden Falcons.

Felician ace, Ashley Owens, attacked the Georgian Court lineup all game, going the distance to improve to 12-7 on the season (7.0 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 9 K). Jessica O'Neil (10-6) was saddled with the setback (6.0 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K).

A fielding error by the Golden Falcons opened the door for the first run of the nightcap as the Lions owned a 1-0 lead after two innings of action. Felician countered in a big way in the top of the third when Montoya mashed a mighty three-run dinger over the wall in left-center to put the road warriors ahead by two.

In what was shaping up to be an offensive onslaught for both clubs, GCU gathered four runs on four hits in the bottom of the frame to regain the advantage at 5-3. The flame abruptly extinguished from the Lions' fire-power after this outburst, however, as the home team was unable to push across another run the rest of the day.

The Golden Falcons would proceed to score in each of the remaining four innings, bringing across six unanswered runs to glide to the game two victory.

Montoya added another long ball in the sixth, this time of the two-run variety, to cap a five-RBI performance for the victors. 

Erin Powers (4-4) earned the win for Felician (4.0 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 4 K) while Owens returned for the final three innings to register the save. O'Neil suffered her second loss of the day, this time in relief, as the hurler permitted three runs (2 ER) on four hits over 2.2 innings of work.

Aside from the game one homer, Felician avoided pitching to GCU's Reilly as the Golden Falcons walked the feared slugger six times on the afternoon.

With Sunday's doubleheader vs. Mercy College postponed, the Lions will next take the diamond on Wednesday with a CACC twin-bill at Dominican College. Start time is set for 2:30 p.m.