West Orange's 14 and under softball team showed encouragement Tuesday night in the Bi-County Tournament quarterfinals at James Caldwell High School varsity softball field in Caldwell. But, the Mountaineers would have needed much more to pull off what would have been a significant upset.
Once-beaten Caldwell, the No. 2 seed in the tournament, scored an 11-1 mercy-rule, six-inning win over No. 7 West Orange in the playoff quarterfinals. West Orange had advanced with a victory over Madison.
But Caldwell, 10-1, was simply too much.
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The Mountaineers got a spirited game from pitcher Jamie DeAngelis and some fine defensive plays from shortstop Jahnaya Howard. A couple of errors and the fact that the Mountaineers stranded 12 base runners hurt.
"It was a tough game, but you know we battled," said coach Tony Leone, whose team finished the year with a 5-7 record. "We left a lot of guys on base. But we had a good season overall. Caldwell is a good team.
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"We definitely improved. If you saw us in our first game you would have thought we were the 'Bad News Bears.' The kids know what they're doing, they just don't execute all the time."
West Orange did score first. DeAngelis walked with one out in the first, moved to third on Nina Levitin's single, and then scored on another single by Kerry Bolen.
West Orange loaded the bases in the second on Ryan Gravelle's double, a walk to Liz DeJong and when Gabby Upadhyay was hit by a pitch. But Caldwell pitcher Cayla Lombardi got Breann Dangler to pop to first. The Mountaineers also loaded the bases in the third on a walk to DeAngelis, Levitin's double and another walk to Kerry Bolen.
But Lombardi induced Kristen Bolen to hit a soft liner to third base. In the fourth, Gravelle led off with a walk, moved up on a wild pitch and went to third on Lindsay Tortora's single, but Lombardi escaped again with two strikeouts and a groundout.
"We just made too many mistakes to beat a good team like Caldwell. To beat a team like this, you have to give them three outs,'' Leone said. "When you give them five outs an inning you're going to be in trouble.''
DeAngelis struck out four, allowed 12 hits and walked three.
"I learned to be more aggressive and do the best I can,'' said DeAngelis, who'll be a freshman in the fall at West Orange High School.
