MALTA – There really was little time for the Liverpool softball team to savor its remarkable Section III Class AA championship victory over Baldwinsville.
Not even 48 hours and one senior prom later, the Warriors boarded a bus and went to Luther Forest Athletic Fields in Malta for Saturday’s regional final against Section II champion Saratoga Springs.
All these factors, combined with the fact that Saratoga was playing close to home and was well-rested (it won its sectional final over Shenendehowa more than a week earlier), appeared to leave Liverpool at a major disadvantage.
That did not prove the case, though.
Sustaining all the momentum from that B’ville epic, the Warriors struck early against the Blue Streaks, continued to pile up runs and didn’t let up until it had secured a 10-4 victory and a regional title.
Quite unlike the sectional game, Liverpool didn’t wait until the game’s middle stages to get on the board.
Instead, in the top of the second inning it took advantage of a Saratoga error to plate two runs, one of them scoring on Lily Stevens’ single, and adding a third when a wild pitch allowed another runner to score.
Another run followed in the third when Julia Wike’s line drive was mishandled to make it 4-0, and then it really got away with the Warriors adding six runs in the top of the fifth against two Blue Streaks pitchers.
Down 10-0, Saratoga was able to get single runs in the fifth and sixth innings, plus two runs in the seventh, but Liverpool still closed it out, Cassie Wiggins again earning the win in the pitcher’s circle.
Next Saturday, the Warriors go after the program’s first-ever state championship at Moriches Athletic Complex on Long Island. Liverpool meets the Long Island champions, Massapequa, at 9 a.m. in the state semifinals, with the winner getting to the championship game at 1:30 against Lancaster or Monroe-Woodbury.
