Amity Softball out of the quarter finals

Amity’s hopes for a Class LL softball championship were shattered Friday afternoon when the Lady Spartans were defeated in the quarter-finals by top-ranked Westhill High of Stamford 8-2 at the Vikings’ Allison Rioux Field. The host Vikings came in with a 21-1 record and they wasted no time going right after Amity, scoring four runs in the bottom of the first inning and then tacking on additional tallies in each of the next three innings.

Cassandra Kish led off the bottom of the first inning with a single up the middle. Amity starting pitcher Corina Zdrowski could not come up with Brittany Horn’s attempted sacrifice bunt. With runners on the corners and no one out, Horn swiped second base. After Kish scored on an Eileen Tublin fielder’s choice, Viking catcher Elizabeth Joseph ripped a towering triple to deep center field, driving in two more. At that point Amity Coach Bob Purcell brought Taylor Baker in to replace Zdrowski. The first batter she faced was Tammy Wise and she stroked a sacrifice fly that sent Joseph home with Westhill’s fourth run.

Trailing 4-0, Amity cut the Vikings’ lead in half during the top of the second inning. With one out, Jenn Post reached base on an error by Westhill first baseman Megan Delassandra. Heather Watt clubbed a three bagger into the right center field gap that easily drove in Post. Alyssa Mirmina’s one-out base hit up the middle sent Watt home with the visitors’ second run. The Vikings avoided further damage by getting CJ Semones to bang into an inning-ending double play.

After seeing its lead cut in half, Westhill matched Amity’s output in the bottom of the same inning. With two outs, Kish and Horn singled and winning pitcher Alison Micari walked. Tublin made it 6-2 as she drilled a two-run single into left field.

With two out in the bottom of the third, Delassandra tripled into the right center field alley. Baker then walked Erin Downey, Allyson Souza, and Kish to force in another run and give the Vikings a 7-2 lead. Westhill added its eighth and final run off Dana Blydenberg in the bottom of the fourth inning. She walked Macari and then wild pitched her to second. Micari came around to score on consecutive infield outs by Tublin and Joseph.

After allowing two runs on two hits in the second inning, the hard-throwing Micari did not give up another hit. In addition to allowing two runs on only three hits, she whiffed five Lady Spartans and issued three free passes.

“Westhill is a very good hitting team—the best hitting team I’ve seen this year. They really hit some shots, but at the same time, our pitching wasn’t as sharp as it had been in previous games. We didn’t play our best game, but a very good team beat us today.  I think if Corina had picked up that ball in the first inning, it would have been a different game. Their two triples were really belted and took the wind out of our sails. I’m proud that we came back with two runs in the top of the second inning. I put Dana (Blydenburg) into pitch and she did a good job throwing a lot of junk,” Purcell said.

The 22-1 winners were led by Kish (two hits, two runs, one RBI), Horn (one hit, two runs, one stolen base), Tublin (one run, one hit, three RBI), and Joseph (one triple, one run, three RBI), and Delassandra (one triple, one run).

Looking back at his team’s 16-7 final record, Purcell added, “We had a good year. I’d call the season a success. We lose only one senior (Post). Everybody else will be back next year. We could be very good next year and maybe even win it all.”