CENTRAL NEW YORK – A single swing by Heather Sorts produced a satisfying amount of payback for the Jordan-Elbridge softball team.
Sorts’ home run in the bottom of the seventh inning of last Tuesday’s game against Altmar-Parish-Williamstown not only produced a 3-2 victory and kept the Eagles undefeated, it helped heal an old wound.
Nearly 12 months earlier, J-E’s dreams of a Section III Class B championship were dashed by the Rebels in a 2-1 opening-round defeat, and every Eagles player remembered it.
Now, in the rematch, APW got a first-inning run that the Eagles answered an inning later. A fourth-inning exchange followed, the Rebels again going in front and the Eagles again tying it.
Then it stayed 2-2 for a while, Abby DelFavero settling down with four scoreless innings as she held APW to three hits overall and struck out eight.
Christa Koagel pitched well for APW, but J-E did manage seven hits off her, two each from Isabella Jay and Naveh Foster to go with RBIs from Sorts and Cam Fraher.
Then, in the bottom of the seventh, Sorts faced Koagel, jumped on a good pitch and saw it sail over the fence for the Eagles’ eighth consecutive victory.
Back on April 28, J-E brought a six-game streak into its league clash with Pulaski and again put everything together in a 9-0 shutout of the Blue Devils.
Though helped in no small part by Pulaski’s six errors, the Eagles pounded out 15 hits to support DelFavero’s latest shutout that included eight strikeouts and just four hits allowed.
At the plate, DelFavero had three hits, but so did Foster and Erin LaVancha. Ava Hildebrant drove in a pair of runs, with RBIs also credited to Foster, Fraher, LaVancha, Jay and Abbie Ahern.
And after the drama with APW, J-E was back in action Friday, at Skaneateles, able to maintain its perfect mark by defeating the Lakers 5-1.
They were scoreless until the top of the fourth, when the Eagles struck for four runs, adding an insurance tally in the sixth. LaVancha and Jay were both credited with RBIs as Hildebrant walked, singled and scored twice.
Maintaining a shutout until the seventh inning, DelFavero limited Skaneateles to five hits and struck out nine without surrendering a walk.
Prior to this, Skaneateles took a 6-4 defeat to Oswego last Tuesday as the Lakers could not quite overcome a 4-0 lead built up by the Bucanneers in the first two innings and even though it had six hits to Oswego’s three.
West Genesee, off for more than a week since an April 27 win over Auburn, returned in strong fashion Saturday, handing 8-0 South Jefferson its first defeat of the season in a powerful 20-9 romp.
Scoring in every inning but the first, the Wildcats peaked with four runs in the second and seven runs in the third, ultimately producing 18 hits, six of them home runs.
Makayla Dunham and Alanna Bowman both went deep twice, with Dunham getting six RBIs and Bowman three RBIs. Maddie Barstow and Lexi Rydelek added to the home-run parade, Rydelek producing three hits to lead WG as Barstow matched Bowman driving in three runs. Sophia VanHorn and Brynlee Elkins had two RBIs apiece.
