Even as it plots another championship course, the Solvay softball team is aware of the challenge its neighbors and rivals from Westhill could provide.
Thus, when the two squared off for the first of a pair of regular-season showdowns on Thursday afternoon, the Bearcats, even as the visiting team, grabbed control early and never let go until it had put away the Warriors 14-0.
It didn’t take long for Solvay to get on the board, scoring twice in the first inning before Lauren Nichols launched a solo home run in the top of the second. Two more runs in the third inning created a 5-0 margin, but the Bearcats were far from done.
Loading the bases in the fourth, Solvay cleared them thanks to Brandi Pidkaminy’s double. Four runs followed in the fifth inning, as Molly McGuire belted a three-run home run that helped make it 12-0.
Two more runs in the sixth (with Nicole Antonacci contributing an RBI double) and a run in the seventh thanks to a second Nichols solo shot (she finished with four RBIs) meant that Solvay had plated a run in every single inning.
Jackie Gardner didn’t need much support, holding Westhill to three hits – one each by Claire Hewitt, Melissa Newcomb and Katie Lobello – while striking out 10. In fact, Gardner had more hits at the plate (four) than she allowed and earned three RBIs, with Antonacci also getting four hits and scoring four runs. The Bearcats notched 19 hits overall.
Solvay tuned up last Monday by going to Phoenix and unleashing every bit of its offensive firepower during a 25-0 destruction of the Firebirds.
The fun included an 11-run third inning, which came with the Bearcats already in front 6-0. Chelsie Delperuto would smack a pair of three-run home runs, part of an effort where she had five hits, four runs scored and six RBIs.
All told, Solvay got 20 hits, three of them from Pidkaminy. Antonacci and Jordan Micheletti earned two RBIs apiece. McGuire and Jordyn Everett also drove in runs as Gardner tossed a one-hit shutout, striking out 12 Phoenix batters.
Then the Bearcats beat West Genesee 3-1 on Wednesday afternoon. Gardner rested as Nichols tossed a complete game, holding the Wildcats to three hits and a sixth-inning run, as Solvay got all of its runs in the second, two of them racing home on Pidkaminy’s double.
Westhill, meanwhile, was coming off a trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where it went 2-2,and the games proved extreme. Either the Warriors won big, over Phillip Barbour (West Virginia) 13-0 and Breckenridge 10-0, or lost big, falling to Greenbrier 10-1 and Wesleyan Christian 13-3.
So it only figured that, in Westhill’s OHSL Liberty division opener last Monday at Cazenovia, it would again prove one-sided – in the Warriors’ favor, to the tune of a 19-3 romp over the Lakers.
Already with a 5-0 lead, Westhill got away with eight runs in the fourth and six runs in the fifth, with Claire Hewitt setting the pace thanks to her three hits, two runs scored and four RBIs.
Nicole Moriarty went three-for-four, scoring three times and driving in a trio of runs. Melissa Newcomb added three hits and two RBIs, while Leah Diefendorf and Isabella Rodriguez got one RBI apiece. Newcomb struck out nine in her six-inning effort where she held Cazenovia to three hits.
Right before hosting Solvay, Westhill blanked Hannibal 23-0 on Wednesday afternoon, Bella Lavigne and Katie Lobello combining on a three-hit shutout that was launched by a 10-run first inning on Westhill’s behalf.
Hewitt’s home run was one of three hits on the afternoon, leading to three RBIs. Lobello also drove in three runs as Moriarty, Diefendorf, Newcomb, Rodriguez and Jordan Tucker each got two RBIs and Westhill earned 17 hits overall.
