ONONDAGA COUNTY – Having suffered its first defeat of the season to South Glens Falls at the April 20 Ballston Spa Invitational, the Jamesville-DeWitt softball team had a quick and emphatic response.
The Red Rams went out last Monday and beat Oswego 7-1, trailing the Buccaneers 1-0 before tying it in the bottom of the fourth inning and using a six-run outburst an inning later to decide it.
Emily Bulone continued to tear it up at the plate, earning two hits to match Sophia Zoghby. Maddie Murphy, Savannah Schnorr and Kayla McQuaid drove in runs as Kaira McMahon struck out 11 and held Oswego to five hits overall.
A busy weekend started Friday with J-D routing East Syracuse Minoa 20-1, needing just five innings to finish the game as it put up seven runs in the first and third innings, followed by a seven-run fourth and six-run fifth.
McQuaid drilled a home run and earned four RBIs as part of a four-for-four outing. Bulone had three hits and three runs scored, with Zoghby’s pair of hits leading to three RBIs as Murphy, Amanda Aitken and Emily Trevsiani had two RBIs apiece.
All of this led to a pair of high-profile games on Saturday at Carrier Park, and like it did a weekend earlier, J-D would split those games.
It started against Averill Park, a tense and close affair that the Rams would pull out by a 2-1 margin with some late heroics.
McMahon was superb, giving up 10 hits but constantly working her way out of trouble and keeping the game 0-0 until Averill Park put across the go-ahead run in the top of the seventh.
Unfazed by this, J-D put Schnorr and Aitken on base in the bottom of the seventh, and McQuaid singled both of them home to win it, just the sixth hit by the Rams as Bulone had gone three-for-three.
In the second game, against Ballston Spa, J-D could not get on the board, taking a 3-0 defeat. All of the Scotties’ runs came in the sixth inning against McQuaid, who otherwise kept the bats quiet and only allowed three hits. McQuaid had two of the Rams’ three hits.
ESM pushed hard last Tuesday against Whitesboro, yet took an 8-6 defeat as the Spartans allowed six runs in the top of the second that erased an early 2-0 advantage.
Battling to the end, ESM did get 11 hits, two each by Brooke Kirkpatrick, Ava Burry, Juliana Orcutt and Addison Adames. Kirkpatrick also scored a pair of runs as Burry got two RBIs. Single runs were driven in by Maya Boots and Madalynn Ryan.
And after it lost to J-D, the struggles for ESM continued Saturday in a 15-0 defeat to Westhill, who struck quickly for three runs in the first inning and then had an eight-run fourth punctuated by Cadence Ramsing’s grand slam.
