TICONDEROGA WINS quarterfinals of the NYSPHSAA Class C playoffs against SLC

Section 7 champion Ticonderoga Central softball team got outhit by St. Lawrence Central in the quarterfinals of the NYSPHSAA Class C playoffs but not outplayed in coming away from the SUNY Potsdam diamond with an impressive 12-1 win on Saturday. “We had fewer hits but we had bigger hits,” said coach Eric Mullen after the Sentinels earned their first trip to the state semi-finals with their second convincing tournament win in three days. “We’re peaking at the right time. We beat Greenville on Thursday and that was the first time we’d ever beaten Section 2, so I was a little bit concerned coming into this game about maybe getting off to a slow start but that didn’t happen,” he added. “These wins definitely give us confidence moving forward.” Making sure the Sentinels (14-2) got off to a good start was Savannah Bezon, who lined the second pitch she faced to deep centerfield off the outstretched glove of the SLC fielder and to the base of the fence for a triple. She scored two batters later in front of the first of five errors committed on the day by the Lady Larries. Ticonderoga would put up another unearned run in the first inning then add a solo run in the third to go ahead 3-0 before breaking the game open with a seven-run barrage in the fourth. “We knew coming in that Ticonderoga was a good team. They had opportunistic hitting and we had trouble getting hits at the right time. Sometimes the ball just doesn’t fall the right way and that happened to us today,” said SLC coach Tim Brown after his squad closed its NAC Central Division and Section 10 Class C championship season at 18-5. Bezon wound up going 2-3 with three runs scored and an RBI to anchor a balanced effort at the plate that saw 10 different batters produce a hit, RBI or run scored. “Savannah has been our sparkplug all through the playoffs. She got that hit right right away and it pumped everybody up,” Mullen noted. The Sentinels also got a solid outing from the pitcher’s circle from junior Hannah Ross, who struckout nine of the 13 batters she faced. Back by errorless defense, she finished with 13 strikeouts while walking none and surviving 11 hits. Junior Bailee Gauthier was saddled with the loss. She went three and two-thirds innings, giving up eight hits, eightearned runs and four walks while striking out four, before giving way to freshman Makiah Ramsdell, who gave up two hits, one earned run and three walks while fanning three over the final three and a-third. Also making lead offensive contributions toward the win were: Haleigh Wright, who doubled, plated a run and scored another, Kaylee Coon, who went 2-4 with a run scored and RBI, Carly Campney, who doubled and scored a pair of runs, and Emily Hood, who keyed the decisive fourth-inning rally with a two-out, two-run single then scored the third run on an error. Senior Haleigh Agans closed out her standout five-year career at catcher for the Lady Larries by going 3-4, driving home junior Riley Barton with the lone run in the bottom of the fourth with a two-out single to center. Barton had two hits, including a lead-off double in the fourth, along with sophomore Sydney Collins while senior Natasha Barnhart, juniors Hailie Weegar and Gabrielle Ramsdell, and freshman Kelsey Waite had the other SLC hits. “The toughest part is always saying goodbye to the seniors. Haleigh Agans and Natasha Barnhart have been with us for a long time. They aren’t just quality players, they’re quality kids,” Brown noted. “We were still fairly young this spring. We grew up a lot as a team and we have a lot coming back,” he added. “We’ll learn from this.”