By SPENCER BATES
FREDONIA — The season has come to an end for the No. 6 seed Allegany-Limestone softball team, who, despite getting off to a hot start, fell 7-3 to a relentless Fredonia side in the Section 6 Class B Semifinals.
With a spot in the Final on the line, the Gators were the ones that came out swinging, eager to avenge the two CCAA Div. I losses they suffered to the No. 2 seed Hillbillies in a double-header on the road earlier in the campaign.
They benefited from three early errors by the hosts and compounded the pain with a number of their own hits, jumping out to a 3-0 lead after just a half-inning’s work. A welcome sight for A-L coach Kaelyn Arnold, who was seeking a response from her offense after it struggled to get going before two outs were put up on the board in its Section 6 Class B Quarterfinal win over No. 14 seed Newfane.
“Yeah, I mean, we haven’t scored this many runs against Fredonia yet this year, so that was nice to see,” Arnold said. “We attacked right away and jumped right on it.”
But the red-hot A-L bats wound up cooling off significantly over the course of the affair as the Fredonia mistakes ceased. The Gators connected for three hits in the first frame, but only managed to double that total after the next four innings of play.
“We scored three runs in that first inning and we kind of had them on edge,” Arnold said. “We just couldn’t find that same oomph we had in the first inning. We just got to continue that all the way through (games), especially to beat great teams like (Fredonia). But we were right there. We had girls on base a few times, we just couldn’t get them to score in those third, fourth, fifth innings.”
And while A-L’s Kailey Truman managed to keep the Hillbillies at bay from within the circle for a decent amount of time, conceding just two runs on two hits through four frames, things started to unravel in the game’s latter innings.
And according to Arnold, the sense of impending danger was there in the dugout after the Hillbillies got off the blocks.
“I could tell my girls kind of went down a little bit, they weren’t as resilient as they have been in the past,” Arnold said. “And you’ve got to have that (resilience) all the way through, especially deep in the playoffs.”
Allegany-Limestone’s Kennedy Honeck (8) swings at a pitch. Honeck led the Gators on offense going 3-for-4 with a run against the Hillbillies. (Spencer Bates)
Fredonia began to locate Truman’s pitches with increased accuracy and connected for three hits in the fifth inning, off of which the hosts scored five runs, two coming across on passed balls.
And with that, the Hillbillies had taken a commanding lead.
“It wasn’t her best day, and she knows that too,” Arnold said of Truman. “She got off hot, but I think she ended up with five walks and we can’t have that against a really good team like (Fredonia). They started to hit her pretty well, and the strike zone kind of shortened up a little bit, but you just got to play with what you got and adjust to everything.”
The energy had been sapped from the A-L dugout, not only due to the Fredonia offense, but also due to the strong pitching it faced with the host’s starting pitcher Danielle Palisin, who finished with nine strikeouts and zero walks.
“I know these girls said that her release is a little bit different, it was harder to read.” Arnold said. “That can hurt us a little bit, but we should have been able to adjust right away, because this is our third time seeing her. We just didn’t adjust right away, and just came up short.”
The Gators were able to connect for a hit apiece in the sixth and seventh innings, but neither were successful in bringing the offense back to life.
And while a third loss to Fredonia may have not been the way Arnold hoped her team’s season would end, she was able to see a silver lining. The Gators will only lose two seniors to graduation after this season and therefore will be returning a significant amount of varsity experience. This is something that Arnold knows will only help them in their efforts to take another step next season.
“We’re losing two seniors, two really good seniors, and we got to fill their shoes, but the rest, they’re coming back, so it’s great to see,” Arnold said. “We’ll only have two more seniors next year too. So, we’re still young, but we’re right there. We can hang with these teams, and I’m hoping next year we can get a couple more wins against teams like this.”
AT FREDONIA
R H E
Allegany-Limestone 300 000 0 3 9 1
Fredonia 020 050 X 7 5 3
A-L: K. Truman (8 SO, 7 BB) and P. Truman
Fred: Palisin (9 SO, 0 BB) and Muck
