Livingston Thunder 14-U to Play for League Title

The tension was as high as the as the Livingston Thunder 14-U softball team met the Lady Mustangs of Montville in pressured filled 7 innings of playoff softball.

At stake: The right to play in the Denville Summer League Championship game on Monday night. 

The game began at the Montville home field with the visiting Thunder team batting in the first inning. Allie Bienhacker led off with a single, but two pitches later, she was thrown out attempting to steal second. The next batter Julie Kane popped out to the pitcher then Ally Royce singled and quickly stole second base. 

The clean-up hitter Hanna Anderson came to bat with two out and a runner in scoring position and hit a long fly ball over the left fielders head for a RBI triple. 

This was to be the only run scored in the entire game. 

The next six and a half-innings were a defensive gem played between the two teams and one of best played games by either team the whole summer season. For Livingston, at second base Julie Kane made a beautiful leaping catch on a line drive robbing Montville of a single. 

Catcher Hanna Anderson and second base Ally Royce combined to throw out Montville’s lead-off batter after she reached first on a walk then tried to steal second in the bottom of the third inning.  Sami Dock played a solid first base and made some tremendous defensive plays. 

Livingston pitchers Olivia Cordero and Sydney McCormack combined for a seven inning no hitter, striking out seven and walking only five batters.  Olivia Cordero threw the first five innings of no hit ball then Sydney McCormack came in to pitch in relief the sixth and seventh innings. 

McCormack issued a walk to the lead-off batter in the sixth inning but then got the next three batters to ground out stranding the runner at third. This was the only time a Montville player reached third.  McCormack finished the game strong in the bottom of the seventh by getting the leadoff batter to fly out to Sarosha Parsons in left field and then struck out the next two batters to win the game for Livingston. 

In the end, the Livingston Thunder team played seven innings of errorless softball to win the game against the second seeded Montville team.  The Thunder team will travel to Denville on Monday, July 25, at 6 p.m. to face the undefeated Denville Blue Devils for the Summer League Championship.