When the Jamesville-DeWitt softball team entered the fray of the Section III Class A playoffs, it knew the ultimate goal as to dethrone Oneida and end its two-year championship reign, but first it had to get to the finals.
But it wasn’t easy for the Red Rams to make it past Thursday’s quarterfinal round. New Hartford, the no. 10 seed, had the lead midway through the contest, but J-D settled down long enough and, by an 8-6 margin, advanced to the semifinals.
Amanda Sumida, who had pitched so well in recent weeks, got the start, but New Hartford tagged her for three runs in the second inning to erase the Rams’ early 2-0 lead. By the time they reached the bottom of the fourth, the visitors had a 6-4 advantage.
Staying poised and patient, J-D put across a run in the fourth to make it 6-5, and then scored three times in the fifth inning to take the lead. What’s more, reliever Shayna Myshrall made that lead stick with two scoreless frames of relief after Sumida had given up 10 hits and six walks.
Carly O’Hern went three-for-four at the plate, while Paige Sherling delivered a home run and single, scored three times and got three RBIs. Sarina Alexander drove in two runs as Makenzie Keeler doubled, joining O’Hern and Hannah Gunther with one RBI apiece.
In the sectional semifinal Saturday at the Gillette Road Complex in Cicero, J-D would face yet another Tri-Valley League opponent, Whitesboro, who had risen from a no. 11 seed to knock off Central Valley Academy and Indian River in the early rounds.
Ironically, Oneida would, in its sectional quarterfinal, face no. 8 seed East Syracuse Minoa, who had introduced itself to the sectional tournament with an all-out assault at the plate against no. 9 seed Fulton that resulted in a 21-4 victory over the Red Raiders.
True, the Spartans were helped by six Fulton errors, but it still notched 17 hits and scored in every inning, starting to get away with five-run outbursts in the second and third innings before peaking with eight runs in the bottom of the fourth.
Aubrey and Aricia Wiliams each picked up three hits, Aubrey scoring four runs as Aricia earned three RBIs while also crossing the plate three times. Taylor Cassella’s three walks and two triples led to two RBIs as Julia Jackson, Franchescha Polcaro, Sam Short and Sami Wysocki also had two-RBI outings. Alissa Daly and Courtney Burgun drove in one run apiece.
Some of those runs may have proved helpful against Oneida, though the Spartans did come up with a tremendous effort, nearly dethroning the Indians before its bid fell just short in a 4-3 defeat.
Early on, it was apparent that ESM wasn’t intimidated. It trailed, 1-0, thanks to Lexi Skibitski’s first-inning double that scored Elizabeth LaSalle, but an inning later Polcaro, in left field, threw out a runner trying to score.
Energized by that play, the Spartans tied it, 1-1, in the top of the third with Daly getting an RBI single, but Oneida countered in the bottom of the third by scoring twice. Then Polcaro got going again in the top of the fourth, reaching when Kylie Chesebro hit her and eventually coming around to score.
A pair of doubles – one by Lauren Skibitski, the other by Briana Laureti – got Oneida a 4-2 edge in the bottom of the fourth, but from there Short did a superb job keeping the Indians off the board, allowing for multiple chances for ESM to catch up.
An Oneida error in the top of the fifth inning allowed Aubrey Williams to score and trim the Spartans’ deficit to one. Then, in the sixth, ESM put the tying and go-ahead runs on base, but Chesebro stranded them, and in the seventh a base-running mistake cut short another chance to tie, allowing Oneida to survive.
