Cougars Wipe the Diamond With Hilltoppers, 10-0

With the heavy rains finally out of the way from early in the week, Cranford and Summit were back in action on the girls' softball diamond, and the Lady Cougars were as sharp as ever, defeating the Hilltoppers 10-0.

"I'm happy," said Cranford coach Bob Bruno. "I'm watching some of our kids mature. They're taking directions well. We're doing the things we need to do defensively. I'm still not too pleased with the offense. It's kind of a work in progress, but we've been figuring out ways to get that clutch hit. Pitching has been superb."

The big effort Wednesday was provided by freshman Julie Siragusa, who struck out 10 batters while giving up one hit in the five-inning contest. The left-handed fireball continues to earn praise from her coach.

"Julie's fun to watch," he said. "She's a strikeout pitcher. She's learning a change up a little bit better to add to her repertoire. When I have to go behind the plate to catch her, she's scary. The ball moves all over the place, and she's only going to get better."

Cranford struck for eight runs in the first inning before Summit was able to settle down. Stephanie Bagniewski went 3-for-3 to lead the offensive attack.

Meanwhile Summit's trying to find the silver lining while developing a young team.

"We played really well," said Summit coach Lori Zuchowski. "Defensively, we made all the plays that we could make. We had some great plays by our shortstop. They scored eight runs in the first inning and it was all about hitting. I don't even think we had one error in the game. So we're really happy with the way our kids played. They just out-hit us."

Summit shortstop Jackie Zalis has been impressive in the field, and her efforts are being noticed.

"She made a couple of great plays for us," said Zuchowski. "There were a couple of close calls at first, but she jumped on a ball up the middle. That's what we need to do, we need to play great defense, because offensively we struggle. We need to almost play a perfect game."

"It took awhile to get used to the pitcher, but Cranford's a really great team," said catcher Liz Cassin. "But once we got the speed of the pitcher and the timing down, we were making contact."

As for the season, Zuchowski knows the close calls will soon turn into victories if they stay patient.

"I would say we've played some good ball, we just haven't been able to get over the hump," said Zuchowski. "We've had a couple of close games. Last week, we lost to Oak Knoll 8-3 in a tight game. Again, it came down to hitting. And then on Tuesday we lost 6-5 to Rahway in extra innings. We were down in that game, came back, tied it, went up a run, and they just got that one run on a fly ball."

"It's a new group of girls from last year and we're really starting to get things together and starting to play like a good team," said Cassin. "We have a couple of games we can really be competitive and win. This is the second time around, and we know what to expect from the other team."

Cranford will try to position themselves at the top of Union County as seeding time rolls around for the county tournament. The Lady Cougars travel to Berkeley Heights to face rival Governor Livingston Friday night at 7:30 in one of the biggest games of the season.

"I guess the winner of that game should be the number one seed in the county," said Bruno. "The loser should be two or three, it depends on the formula. Should we lose, we'll have the same amount of losses as Union. We beat Union so I guess we should be the two, we'll find out."