DEWITT – Earning a sixth consecutive Section III Class A championship for the Jamesville-DeWitt softball team hinged on knocking off Auburn for the third time this spring – which it could not pull off.
In Saturday’s sectional final, the top-seeded Red Rams ultimately paid for a slow start, seeing its furious late rally fall just short as it fell 7-6 to the Maroons.
Adding to the tension and drama of the title game was the fact that Auburn’s head coach, Kelley Horbal, had to miss the game because, the day before, she had gone into the hospital to give birth to her second child, her daughter.
Against this emotion, even J-D’s vaunted big-game experience could get neutralized – and it was, with the Maroons steadily building a 7-1 lead by the fourth inning as Emma Bellner got three hits and Doray DiLallo scored three runs.
Eventually, the Rams settled down and, in the bottom of the fifth, scored three times to cut the margin to 7-4.
Then, in the seventh, J-D got even closer with a pair of runs. But with one out, the Maroons managed to pull off a double play that ended a game and delivered the sectional title to Auburn.
Earlier in the week, the Rams had to oust no. 8 seed Christian Brothers Academy in the quarterfinal round, which it did with its usual offensive outburst as it defeated the Brothers 13-4.
Briefly, CBA went in front 2-0 in the top of the third, but J-D countered with three runs in the third and fourth innings plus a seven-run fifth to put the game away.
Emily Bulone put on a power shot, twice belting home runs on her way to four RBIs as Katie White’s three singles also drove in four runs. Maddy Ancone and Katie Dorazio both had two RBIs and combined for five hits as Kenzie Witz led the Brothers with two doubles and a pair of RBIs.
CBA had earned its shot at J-D by hammering Fulton 19-8 in last Monday’s opening round, a game where seven different players would score multiple runs.
Kenzie Witz and Avery Bowman paced the attack, each finishing with four RBIs as Bowman singled twice and doubled once, while Maya Geiss drove in a pair of runs.
Katelyn Courcy crossed the plate five times as she walked twice and singled. Catherine Halstead scored three runs as Erin Nardella, Allie Boule and Julia DelPino each scored two runs.
As J-D was defeating CBA, ESM entered the fray in the quarterfinals, battling no. 4 seed seed Whitesboro.
Wanting a third game against a J-D side it lost to twice in the regular season, the Spartans got off to a great start, yet could not keep the Warriors from ending its season in a 10-7 decision.
ESM struck for four runs in the top of the first, one each driven in by Olivia Goff, Katie Schmidt, Alana Day and Sierra Daly. After Whitesboro got three runs in its half of the first, the Spartans extended its lead to 7-3 by the fourth, the key blow Morgan Ransom’s two-run home run.
Whitesboro absorbed all this and, in the bottom of the fourth, went in front with a five-run rally, adding two insurance runs in the sixth as it kept ESM off the board the rest of the way. The Spartans finished its season with a 9-7 record.
So it was J-D against Whitesboro in Thursday’s sectional semifinal, and this game mirrored so many others for the Rams as, again, it piled up the runs in a 16-1 romp over the Warriors.
Every single player in the J-D lineup got at least one hit, with Dorazio and Miriam Zoghby getting three hits apiece. Bulone doubled twice as she and Emma White both drove in three runs, with Avery Young joining Zoghby, Dorazio and Katie White notching three RBIs apiece.
As that went on, Fayetteville-Manlius, the no. 3 seed in the Class AA sectional tournament, was ousted 15-0 by no. 2 seed Liverpool in the semifinal round, held to just one hit by Morgan Napier as Emma Terzini, with three hits and four RBIs, paced those Warriors.
