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Softball Wins Pair of Close NEAC Tourney Games
May 1, 2010
Senior Domino Usiak had the walk-off hit against SUNYIT.
The Keuka women’s softball team won both of its North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) Tournament games by one run on Friday. The top seeded Storm began the day by defeating #4 Wilson College (1-0) before knocking off #2 SUNYIT (7-6) in extra innings.
Keuka advances to the NEAC Championship game while improving to 22-6 on the season.
In the other tournament games #2 SUNYIT defeated #3 Penn State-Berks (6-4) while #4 Wilson sent Berks home with a huge 9-1 win. SUNYIT and Wilson will now play each other for the right to square off against the Storm in the championship. The two will play at 10 am on Saturday, May 1 with Keuka playing the winner at noon.
Against Wilson College, junior Denise Bilbow (Baldwinsville, N.Y./C.W. Baker) led off the bottom half of the first with a single and after stealing second base, was driven home by a single from sophomore Sara James (Wayland, N.Y./Wayland-Cohocton). That would be Keuka’s only two hits of the game and the game’s lone run.
Wilson would collect four hits but could never score. Rookie pitcher Allison Richter (Hume, N.Y./Fillmore) tossed a complete game shutout while striking out six. She improves to 12-3 on the year.
Against SUNYIT, the Storm fell behind 2-0 but answered with six runs in the bottom of the second inning. SUNYIT would tie the game with four unearned runs in the fourth inning. Keuka committed five errors in the game while the Wildcats had three miscues. Neither team was able to score in the next three innings forcing extra innings.
After the Wildcats failed to score in the top half of the inning, Keuka wasted no time as the first batter was senior Domino Usiak (Painted Post, N.Y./Corning West) who blasted a single that scored the game-winning run that was placed at second base to begin the inning.
Usiak finished 2-for-3 while Bilbow, junior Morgan Engelbert (Elmira Heights, N.Y./Thomas Edison), and junior Sarah Fredricks (Milton, Ontario/E.C. Drury) each had two hits a piece.
Junior Cherie Smith (Canastota, N.Y./Mohawk Valley CC) pitched the first 3.2 innings while allowing six runs – only one earned – and striking out four. Richter tossed the final 4.1 while striking out five and not allowing a run to pick up her second win of the day.
