One timely win helped spring the Cazenovia softball team back into the race for the OHSL Liberty division regular-season championship.
The Lakers went to Solvay last Monday afternoon and used a mid-game offensive surge to take control before hanging on to beat the Bearcats 7-6.
Prior to that, Solvay had not lost a league game, including a 4-3 win over Cazenovia in their first encounter on April 15. Less than a month later, it was just as close, but with a different result.
The Lakers scored twice in the third inning and added three more runs in the fourth to build a 5-0 lead. Solvay closed it to 5-4 in the bottom of the fourth, only to see Cazenovia score twice in the top of the fifth.
Taylor Malmsheimer, Kara Stalder and Meghan Kurucz each put up three hits, while Korena Fenton belted a two-run home run. Stalder also had two RBIs as she and Abby Eschen both scored twice.
Charged with protecting that lead, pitcher Nicole Chiarello nearly found trouble in the bottom of the seventh, Solvay scoring twice to pull within one. But Chiarello got the final out.
Back home on Wednesday, Cazenovia faced surging Marcellus and cooled them down, too, easily working its way to an 8-1 win over the Mustangs.
Chiarello limited Marcellus to seven hits and a single run in the sixth. By that time, the Lakers had a 6-0 edge and would score in every inning but the fourth on its way to 12 hits.
Malmsheimer, Belle Hoagland, Emily Mastropaolo and Kelly Dougherty each smacked two hits, with Malmsheimer and Hoagland scoring two runs apiece. Chiarello, Stalder and Haley O’Brien got credit for RBIs, as did Mastropaolo and Dougherty.
Now within a game of Solvay in the OHSL Liberty standings, the Lakers went to Jordan-Elbridge on Friday and took out the Eagles 7-4. And when Solvay lost 2-1 to Westhill on the same day, the Lakers had taken over first place in the league.
Keyed by a three-run fifth inning, Cazenovia built a 6-0 margin on J-E, only to have the Eagles close within two, 6-4, before a seventh-inning tally gave Chiarello, who allowed seven hits, some room to breathe.
Hoagland thrashed out three of the Lakers’ nine hits, all doubles, and scored a run. Dougherty crossed the plate twice as Chiarello and Stalder earned RBIs.
And still the Lakers weren’t done, as proven by its work in a weekend tournament where it edged Binghamton Seton Catholic 5-4 and rolled past Vernon-Verona-Sherrill 15-4.
Against Seton Catholic (no. 19 in the last state Class C rankings), Cazenovia made two different comebacks. Down 2-0, it tied the game in the sixth, only to have Seton stage its own two-run rally in the bottom of that frame to make it 4-2.
Unfazed, the Lakers stormed in front with three runs in the top of the seventh before Chiarello managed to record the final outs.Once again, Hoagland led the charge at the plate with two hits, two runs scored and two RBIs. Fenton and Melanie Arehart also managed a pair of hits as they joined Malmsheimer by driving in one run apiece.
It proved far less stressful against VVS, as the Lakers torched the Red Devils for nine runs in the second inning to seize control.
No less than 12 players got at least one hit, including triples from Eschen and Fenton. Hoagland, Mastropaolo and Meaghan Kurucz each had two RBIs as Holly Gamlen scored three runs. Nicole White got a chance to pitch and held VVS to two hits in 4 1/3 innings, striking out six.
Weather permitting, Cazenovia (12-4, 10-2 league) is set to take on Westhill and Skaneateles in the last week of the regular season.
