Of the three area high school softball teams that entered the opening round of the Section III playoffs Tuesday afternoon, two of them were able to advance, both of them in the Class B bracket.
For Westhill, the no. 7 seed, beating no. 10 seed Holland Patent provided plenty of incentive because three-time defending champion Solvay, with the no. 2 seed, awaited in the quarterfinal round two days later.
And while it didn’t prove easy, the Warriors did eliminate the Golden Knights 11-7, led by Nicole Moriarty, who was a home run short of the cycle as she produced a single, double, triple and three RBIs.
Katie Lobello scored twice and also drove in three runs, while Melissa Newcomb and Leah Diefendorf had two RBIs apiece. Dori Klein also drove in a run and Maggie Dunn scored two runs as Newcomb battled through seven HP hits to strike out four and pitch a complete game.
Marcellus drew the no. 8 seed, a tough assignment because, even if it beat no. 9 seed Canastota in the opening round, it would have to go to Boonville to face top seed Adirondack in the quarterfinals.
Disregarding all of those concerns, the Mustangs outscored Canastota 12-7 in a back-and-forth affair where Marcellus fell behind by margins of 2-0 and 4-2 to the Raiders, but kept responding to the Raiders.
It turned in the game’s middle stages, where Marcellus netted three runs in the bottom of the fourth to go in front for good and added four runs an inning later for a 9-4 edge. Fighting back, Canastota got back within two, 9-7, but three runs in the sixth allowed the Mustangs to hang on.
Amid a 13-hit attack at the plate, Jayme Lema doubled twice, tripled, scored three runs and finished with three RBIs. Emily Welch also had three hits and drove in three runs, with Evelyn Webster notching her own three-hit effort. McKenna Donegan drove in two runs as Sydney Lewis and Emily Durand got one RBI apiece and Alyssa Cook scored twice.
Only Bishop Ludden, in the opening round of the Class C sectional tournament, could not make it out, unable to hold two different leads in a 5-4 defeat to Herkimer.
As the no. 13 seed, the Gaelic Knights nearly pulled off the surprise, scoring twice in the top of the third inning to take a 2-0 lead before Herkimer, the no. 4 seed, answered with two runs of its own in the bottom of the third.
They remained 2-2 until a dramatic seventh inning. Ludden appeared to have pulled it out when it got two more runs, but Herkimer, three outs from elimination, instead produced three runs to win it and end the Gaelic Knights’ season with a 6-11 record.
