Eastchester 10 & Under Softball Prepare for Sectional Run

After rolling through the District 20 tournament, Eastchester’s 10 & Under softball team is moving on to Wallkill, NY and a place in the Sectional bracket beginning Tuesday July 12^th.

Eastchester went undefeated in the District playoffs, defeating teams from Kensico, Ardsley, Sherman Park and Harrison. Eastchester defeated Harrison by a score of 5-4 in last Thursday’s championship game, securing their second district crown in as many years and booking their ticket to Wallkill.

Despite coming into this month’s district tournament as the defending champions, Eastchester Head Coach Ken Graham knew what challenges – and uncertainties – lay ahead, including whether or not his roster of “all-star” caliber players would be able to gel in time for their opening playoff games. 

“It’s definitely hard because if you have figure out who can play what positions in kind of a quick time frame and try to place everyone in the right spots,” Graham said. “It’s a little challenging in that regard, but after the first results we kind of sat back and saw that we did the right thing with where everyone was playing.”

One of those first results was an impressive 11-1 first-round win over Kensico, in a game which saw Eastchester’s Olivia Yorizzo strike out 14 batters and her teammates collect over ten hits. Eastchester never slowed down from there, outscoring Ardsley and Sherman Park by a combined score of 23-6 in their next two contests before edging past Harrison in the championship game. The team is made up of players eight, nine, and ten-years old, including Nicole Calabro, Tori Santomauro, Brid O'Connell, Ava Reda, Skylar Reilly, Madison Piro, Carson Delasho, Ashley Graham, Olivia Yorizzo, Sophia Boscia, Ashley Anello and Giuliana Fogliano.

“It’s nice to see them go through these games getting better and better and gelling as a team,” Graham said. “There’s a bit of a new look to this year’s team, so we’re looking for our older girls to be leaders.”

Relying on his “veteran” players from last year’s District 20 championship team to lead the way for this new-look Eastchester squad, Graham is confident that his team will take no opponent lightly moving forward, and knows a “re-focusing” is necessary for the team to succeed at the next level. 

“We’re trying to tell the girls that it’s great to celebrate what we did, but now we’re moving on and we have something to look forward to,” Graham said. “All the other teams that we’re going to be playing against are also disctric champsions so its going to get harder and harder. They’re going to need all their focus and energy in the right direction."

Eastchester will face District 18 champions South Orangetown in the first round of the Sectional bracket on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m.