Kirby comes through in relief for Bartlett

When Danielle Kirby took the mound in the top of the third inning Wednesday, with her Bartlett softball team down 3-2 to Batavia, her task was clear.

Keep her team in the game and give her hitters a fighting chance.

Mission accomplished.

Kirby gave up 1 hit and no runs in her 4 innings of work in relief of Amber Pagan, then watched as the Hawks exploded for 10 runs in the bottom of the sixth to claim a 13-3 victory.

How dominant was Kirby in winning her fourth straight decision? She retired the first five and last five hitters she faced, and had two called strikeouts. Her only blemish was a triple to the Bulldogs' Ryanne Rokos to start the fifth inning. But Kirby erased Rokos at the plate after serving up a wild pitch that was corralled by Hawks catcher Suzie Miceli, who tossed to Kirby for the out.

Not too shabby a performance for Kirby, considering the frigid temperatures and a stiff wind blowing on from center field.

"I was just trying to help the team out and lift them up because they were kind of down throughout the day," said Kirby, who improved her record to 5-1-1. "We weren't really hitting so I was trying to get them moving."

That Bartlett finally did, breaking through in the sixth inning with 7 hits, 4 of them for extra bases, along with a pair of walks against 2 Batavia pitchers.

Bartlett coach Jeff Wolfsmith - dressed in cargo shorts and a windbreaker - had plenty of praise for Kirby, but also for Batavia's hard-luck starting hurler, sophomore Alena Theis, who held Bartlett to just 3 runs on 7 hits in the first five innings.

"She pitched a good game - she put the ball in the strike zone," Wolfsmith said. "Early in the game, she pitched the way you're supposed to pitch in this weather, make us hit the ball into the wind and try to take away our power.

"I think it took us awhile to find our stride, but once we did I think we felt pretty comfortable offensively. We feel pretty good when Danielle's out there. When you put the wind behind Danielle, she's a tough pitcher for anyone to hit."

The Bulldogs, who fell to 3-3 overall and 1-1 in the Upstate Eight, scored a pair in the first inning and another in the second, thanks to back-to-back wild pitches that plated Rokos, who had earlier reached on a fielder's choice.

Meanwhile, Bartlett chipped away at the lead, scoring single runs in the first and second. In the fifth, Miceli executed a perfect suicide squeeze bunt that scored Alyssa Nowak to tie the game 3-3. Kirby subsequently went 1-2-3 in the top of the sixth. And then the floodgates opened.

With one out, Katie Fornoff, Lauren Janczak and Elyse Hickey hit back-to-back-to-back doubles, followed by a Nowak walk, which spelled the end of the day for Theis, who was relieved by freshman Kaylan Waldron.

Pagan greeted her with a single to center field, scoring Hickey to put Bartlett up 6-3. Nowak, who like Pagan advanced a base on a Waldron wild pitch, scored on another wild pitch, with Pagan moving to third. Miceli then singled to left, scoring Pagan.

Turns out Bartlett was just getting started. Sydney Quagliano added a bases-loaded single later in the inning, and Hickey ended the game with a base hit that scored Janczak, who had tripled.

What was the difference at the plate in the sixth?

"A lot of it is approach," said Wolfsmith, whose team improved to 7-2-1 and 2-0 in the Upstate Eight. "We didn't have a very good approach those first few innings. I thought we were swinging at the pitcher's pitch, which is fine if you're at two strikes, you attack. We were in one-strike counts and no-strike counts, trying to drive balls through this wind, and you can't do that. I thought our approach in the last two innings were really good."

Across the field, Batavia coach Lupe Castellanos was surprised at how quickly his team's fortunes turned.

"We hung in there - we just had that one bad inning, and that's the inning we try to stay out of," he said. "We've been playing some good ball of late … They just got some base runners out there and we couldn't make plays. There were a couple plays there that I thought we should have made and between that, they hit the ball hard. I didn't really realize it was 10 they put up there."

Janczak went 3-for-4 with 2 runs scored for Bartlett, while Hickey went 3-for-5 with a run and 4 RBIs. Rokos went 2-for-3 with a pair of runs scored for Batavia.