CENTRAL NEW YORK – After waiting six years to win a Section III playoff game, the Cazenovia softball team only had to wait 48 hours to get the next one – much to the surprise of just about anybody outside the Lakers’ dugout.
With tremendous pitching and patience, Cazenovia, the no. 6 seed, stunned no. 3 seed Jordan-Elbridge 1-0 in last Thursday’s sectional Class B quarterfinal where lots of experience with the Eagles may have played a key role in the outcome.
These same two teams had played a doubleheader a week earlier. J-E won them, but the initial 3-0 encounter was followed by a 6-5, 10-inning epic which required the Eagles to score twice in the seventh inning to erase a 5-3 Lakers lead.
Filing all of this away, Cazenovia returned and saw its sophomore pitching ace, Paige Reilley, adjust and confuse the Eagles’ hitters through seven scoreless regulation innings.
Yet it remained 0-0 because J-E pitcher Abby DelFavero was just as good, only allowing four hits while accumulating 13 strikeouts and, again, pushing the game into extra frames.
This time, though, it didn’t go beyond the eighth inning. Cadence Walter singled and Cazenovia loaded the bases, then saw DelFavero hit Sophie Wilmot, which brought home Walter.
Reilley then got the final three outs, having given up six hits and two walks but earning nine strikeouts. Lucy Bliss had two of Cazenovia’s four hits, with Wilmot adding a hit.
Whatever else now took place, the Lakers’ season had proven a smashing success, so the disappointment of a 10-2 defeat to no. 2 seed Marcellus in last Saturday’s sectional semifinal at Carrier Park did not linger too long.
That game belonged, in large part, to Mustangs senior Bella Mondello, who damaged Cazenovia both with her pitching arm and her bat.
Marcellus put on pressure from the outset, using walks and bunts to force a series of throwing errors and three quick runs in the bottom of the first
Though Mondello had a part in that early rally, she didn’t really get going at the plate until the bottom of the third, when she drilled a Reilley pitch over the right-field fence to make it 4-0.
Then, after the Lakers cut it to 4-1 in the top of the fourth on Madison Weeks’ RBI double, the Mustangs got four runs in the bottom of the fourth, the key blow Amelia Novitsky’s two-run single.
But it also included Mondello hitting one deep for her second home run of the afternoon. All this, plus a sixth-inning single, complemented what Mondello did in the pitcher’s circle as she amassed 16 strikeouts to run her season total to 192.
To its credit, Cazenovia battled to the end, tacking on a sixth-inning run. Gianna Comino earned two of the Lakers’ four hits, with Lucy Bliss adding a hit. Nearly the entire roster returns for the 2025 season.
