Call it a businesslike showing by Maine-Endwell’s girls to secure Southern Tier Athletic Conference softball supremacy Saturday at Chenango Valley High School.
The Spartans snatched a lead thanks to a cruncher from the championship game’s first batter, only to stretch and stretch in what concluded with an 11-0 win against the host Warriors.
That 2:34 p.m. start followed 7-1 success against Windsor in a 10 a.m. semifinal. Preceding those two was a 4-0 victory against Vestal in Friday’s Metro Division tiebreaker.
Olivia Lewis pitched the distance twice for Maine-Endwell on Saturday, in her 14th and final inning inducing an outfield fly, striking out a batter and concluding by getting the final batter on a soft pop to the infield.
Stacking up titles
Saturday brought Maine-Endwell’s third STAC title, the others claimed in 2017 and 2019_ first of those chased with a Class A state title.
Given no STAC playoffs in COVID-19 interrupted 2020 and 2021 seasons, this makes for three of the most recent five available conference championships for the Spartans.
Union-Endicott heads the conference with nine championships, Susquehanna Valley’s seven second-best.
Big-time early blast
The lead was Maine-Endwell’s when Kaety L’Amoreaux, senior shortstop and leadoff batter, smoked a 1-2 pitch decisively over the fence a shade left of center field, and was doubled four batters later when Aleciyah Brodley lined a run-scoring single on a 2-2 pitch.
Following a scoreless second, the Spartans would produce runs in four of their remaining five cracks.
Difference-making inning
The first two batters in the top of the third were retired before M-E went to work in earnest.
Isabel Hunter’s bloop of a base hit to short right field scored Lewis, who’d one-hopped a double off the right-field fence a batter before. Anna Fellows beat out an infield single to score another run, and Lauren Eagan sent a shot to left that grazed off the glove of CV’s fielder to score two more.
It became a 7-0…
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