By SPENCER BATES
GOWANDA — While bringing across three runs in the seventh inning was enough to rattle its hosts, ultimately a complete comeback for the Portville softball team was not in the cards.
Falling 6-3 to Gowanda in the Section 6 Class C First Round, Portville saw its season come to a close, but not without letting its presence be known.
Gowanda had got the affair going with a bang, courtesy of Addison Kota (3 RBI). Her leadoff home run, followed by an RBI from Alayna Fish, immediately put Portville in a position where it needed to find a response.
But none was to come for some time.
Gowanda put up two runs in each of the first three innings, with some help coming from a handful of defensive errors from its guests. Without an answer, and with just one hit to its name through those frames, Portville found itself staring up from a 6-0 hole.
Offense had been the one area of concern for head coach Bill Torrey this season. All other facets he had been relatively satisfied with, but at the plate he picked up on a lack of confidence. Granted, he acknowledged he did see some significant growth in that realm since the season began.
“Early on (this season) I would have liked to see more confidence at the plate,” Torrey said. “I feel like if you go back and look, the teams that we were playing close, we had to be pretty perfect defensively, and that’s why we were in games. So, while I don’t think they let things get to them, and I felt like they were quite confident in the field, I feel like it was at the plate where we needed to grow, and we did, just not quite as much as we needed to to get to the next round.”
But all it takes is one hit, one moment to send a shockwave of belief through a team, especially at the high school level, as Torrey noted.
Following its six-run burst to start the game, Gowanda fell quiet. Behind some masterful pitching from Ella Warters and a defense that had bounced back from its early miscues, Portville had something brewing.
It all started to culminate in the sixth inning when Portville threatened to put an end to the shutout with a bases-loaded situation. Nothing came of that inning, but the energy carried over into the final frame.
With two outs on the board and its season on the line, it was Portville’s turn to take advantage of defensive mistakes. Gowanda, needing just one out to seal victory, recorded three errors which resulted in two runs for the visitors. Alexa Schoonover (2-for-4, run) had the lone RBI for Portville with a single in the inning as well.
In the blink of an eye, the deficit Portville faced was halved. But the momentum swing came just too late as Gowanda eventually composed itself enough to record the final out.
“I’m a firm believer that momentum in high school sports is huge,” Torrey said. “When (Gowanda is) able to come out and Kota hits a home run right away, that shifts you back on your heels. We spend how many innings trying to get our footing back? In the top of the seventh we get it back, but it’s a little too late. I think we’ve grown a little bit in that capacity, in putting the bat on the ball, just not enough today.
Portville’s Sienna Schoonover (23) connects on a pitch against Gowanda. (Spencer Bates)
“Credit to (Gowanda), they’re a good program. We let them leak in one or two more than they earned, so to speak. We battled throughout the middle innings. We put runners on base. We just were lacking that one big hit to blow it open. The last inning with two outs was just a little too late.”
But while the campaign may now be at its end, there is still plenty of hope within the Portville program for sustained success as it graduates just three seniors in Madison Ford, Alexa Schoonover and Isabella Morales. That being said, replacing those three will not be easy as they have been instrumental to the team for a number of years.
But with the likes of Ella Warters, Sienna Schoonover and Averi Luther — the latter having made a name for herself against Gowanda as a late call up after Portville’s usual catcher was injured in the last game of the regular season — making significant strides this season, there is belief that they will be able to fill those now vacant roles.
“First, I want to say thank you to the three seniors that are leaving,” Torrey said. “Madison Ford has played for me for five years … and the other two since they were freshmen. I feel like when you have programs that sustain success, it tends to be one year after another. So, while those talented girls are heading out and have left their mark and their footprint on our program, there’s ones coming up that have made softball their thing. Sienna (Schoonover) was a very pleasant surprise at the plate. She’s been putting the bat on the ball all year. Ella (Warters), … her mental side of the game in the circle has done a complete 180 and I’m so proud of her for that. And Averi (Luther) has been someone who I know is going to bother other teams for years to come.”
Portville finished the season with a 7-7 overall record.
AT GOWANDA
Portville 000 000 3 R:3 H:4 E:4
Gowanda 222 000 X R:6 H:7 E:4
Port: Warters (1 SO, 2 BB) and Luther
Gow: Kota (3 SO, 6 BB) and Luther
