Batavia tops Metea, now 7-0

In a game that featured plenty of offensive highlights, perhaps the most important plays were turned in on the defensive end Friday afternoon.

Outfielders Meghan Fabian, Katie Ryan and Lindsey McEachern all recorded assists to squelch a potential late-inning comeback and help lift Batavia's softball team to a 10-7 Upstate Eight Conference victory over Metea Valley (1-2, 1-1) in Batavia.

The win improved the Bulldogs' overall record to 7-0, 3-0 in UEC play.

“When you have good arms coming in from the outfield, it makes a big difference,” said Bulldogs coach Ashley Szymski.

It certainly made a huge difference in the fifth and sixth innings for the Bulldogs, who led 8-5 after 4 innings.

After Metea Valley's Alyssa Coletto led off the fifth with a double off eventual winning pitcher Katie Coleman (3-0), Jenn Faassen delivered a single through the left side.

Fabian charged the ball in the outfield and fired a 1-hop strike to catcher Emily Dorjath, who applied the tag to Coletto for the first out of the inning.

The next batter, Anna Petersen, singled up the middle but center fielder Katie Ryan fielded the ball cleanly and came up throwing to Dorjath, who caught the Mustangs' baserunner in a rundown and was tagged out by third baseman Christine Lynam for the second out.

Sophomore Lori Obendorf followed with an RBI double to center, as Petersen narrowly beat the relay throw to the plate to cut the Bulldogs' lead to 8-6.

“Our arms from the outfield were on today,” said Szymski. “Those two plays at the plays — and almost a third — were great to see.

“Emily's been working real hard on properly getting out for blocking of the plate.”

Brooke Nelson came on in relief of Coleman to record the third out of the fifth before giving up a sixth-inning tally that made it 8-7.

However, the Mustangs ran themselves out of another run in the sixth after leadoff hitter Sara Knox singled and was gunned down by McEachern's throw from right field.

“We definitely did run ourselves out of a couple innings,” said Metea Valley coach Kris Kalivas. “There's a good and bad with that. Obviously, we were aggressive and I'm OK with that. We're still working through some youth. And everyone else we're playing is on Game 8 or 9 while we're on Game 3.”

Batavia added a pair of insurance runs in the sixth before reliever Katie Neubauer recorded the final 3 outs in the top of the seventh.

The Bulldogs grabbed a 3-0 lead on Nelson's 3-run home run in the first inning.

“It's my first high school home run,” said Nelson. “I hit it and I was like, ‘oh, that's really high.' Then I heard, ‘that's out.' It was a great feeling.”

Knox, Emily Baker and Coletto had RBI during Metea's 4-run second but Batavia answered with 2 runs in the bottom half of the frame on Ryan's RBI single and Neubauer's run-scoring triple.

After Metea tied it in the fourth on Antoinette Senese's RBI double, the Bulldogs took the lead for good with 3 unearned runs in the bottom half of the frame.

The key play of the inning came when Nelson's 2-out comebacker to the mound was thrown wide of first base, allowing both Fabian and Lynam to score.

“We've been talking a lot about how you run everything out because anything can happen,” said Szymski.

“The positives from this were that we hit the ball hard, we made them go all three pitchers deep, and we never stopped fighting,” said Kalivas.