ONONDAGA COUNTY – Once again, Jamesville-DeWitt and East Syracuse Minoa found themselves against another on the softball diamond last Saturday afternoon, this time with a berth in the Section III Class A championship game at stake.
Remembering that it lost in this same round a year ago, the top-seeded Red Rams jumped all over the no. 4 seed Spartans and didn’t let up until it had secured an 11-0 victory.
In the bottom of the first inning, J-D got to Olivia Goff for three runs, then did the same thing in the second for a 6-0 advantage, all that was needed.
Keira McMahon did more than just throw a complete-game shutout that included five strikeouts against six hits allowed. She also hit a home run and tripled, recording a team-best four RBIs.
Savannah Schnorr had two hits and two walks, scoring three times. Emily Bulone went two-for-three with a walk and two runs scored, joining Amanda Aitken, Celia Linkiewicz and Lyla Commandeur with one RBI apiece.
Though ESM had six hits, one each by Goff, Sara Brefka, Ava Burry, Juliana Orcutt, Madeline Marquart and Addison Adames, none went for extra bases.
Each team got to this point with impressive quarterfinal wins, J-D piling up runs in an 18-3 win over no. 7 seed Indian River as ESM blanked no. 5 seed Christian Brothers Academy 5-0.
Goff kept the Brothers off the board, throwing a complete game where she gave up just four hits and six walks, but kept escaping trouble, mostly due to her 13 strikeouts.
ESM got a pair of first-inning runs, added a run in the fourth and scored twice in the fifth. Goff got a pair of RBIs, with Brooke Kirkpatrick scoring twice as she and Sara Brefka had one RBI apiece.
At J-D, meanwhile, the Rams found itself in a 2-2 tie when, in the bottom of the fourth, it struck for two runs, a prelude to big late-game outbursts as it broke out for eight runs in the fifth and six runs in the sixth.
Schnorr led the way, earning four hits, scoring three runs and finishing with three RBIs. McMahon also drove in three runs as Bulone, Sophia Zoghby, Addison Buffs and Stella White had two RBIs apiece.
While all this was going on, Fayetteville-Manlius, the no. 7 seed in Class AA, nearly knocked off no. 2 seed Cicero-North Syracuse in its sectional quarterfinal, only to fall 12-11 in nine innings to the Northstars.
They traded single runs in the first and three runs in the second. C-NS scored four times in the third to lead 8-4, but the Hornets answered with five runs in the top of the sixth to get a 9-8 lead.
Another exchange followed, C-NS pulling even 9-9, F-M landing two runs in the top of the seventh and leading 11-9, but not able to get the final three outs as the Northstars staged its own two-run rally in the bottom of the sixth.
They stayed 11-11 until the bottom of the ninth, when C-NS pushed across the winning run and ended the Hornets’ season.
