Cougars Take Down the Highlanders in Walk-Off Fashion

The Kennedy Cougars suffered an agonizing 2-1 defeat in 10 innings on Monday afternoon at Herricks High School. On Tuesday, they took on the Highlanders once again, and were looking for payback on their home field.

Payback is exactly what Kennedy High School got, as they returned the favor with a 2-1 win of their own, courtesy of a walk-off single in the bottom of the seventh by junior catcher Steph Bauman.

"I knew they were going to do it after yesterday," Kennedy coach Katie Speiss said. "Going to extra innings and coming out with the loss after a great game, they knew that they wanted some revenge today, and they got it."

According to Bauman, the past few games had not really gone her way.

"It's been very frustrating because for the past few days every ball I hit was basically to the person," Bauman said. "So it was very exciting to get a ball to land in fair territory and get the game winning hit."

With an ecstatic winning team after an exciting finish, though, there is also a team which is obviously let down. Unfortunately for the Herrick Highlanders, that was them on Tuesday, as it was the Cougars on Monday.

"It's very disappointing, but both teams played an outstanding game," Herricks coach Diane Pasatieri said. "I mean there were hits, there were runners on base every inning, good plays were made every inning. It's disappointing but you know what, there's always another day."

That one run in the bottom half of the last frame may not have been enough, however, had the top of the seventh inning gone differently. Before any outs had been recorded, there were runners on first and second, and it seemed as though the bottom of the inning would be an uphill battle. 

Sophomore Kennedy pitcher Sam Finkel had other plans in mind though. The next three batters popped out, hit into a fielder's choice, and grounded out, stranding two runners on first and second.

"Finkel's really good at keeping her composure," Speiss said. "She's a tenth grader, she's young, but she has that drive. I know that she likes those situations, she likes putting that pressure on herself."

But Finkel actually didn't put all of the pressure on herself.

"It was big and we did it as a team though," Finkel said.

The Cougars will try to keep the momentum from this win on today as they host Calhoun High School at 4:30 p.m.