'Couldn't string enough together': Case bats cut short by Amesbury pitcher in state final
AMHERST – Senior left-hander Liv DeLong limited Case to three hits and second-ranked Amesbury defeated the Cardinals 1-0 in the state Division 4 softball championship game on Saturday at chilly Sortino Field, on the campus of UMass Amherst.
Amesbury scored in the fourth inning when Isabelle Lavasseur’s two-out single to center off Hailey Berube scored her sister, Olivia Levasseur, who had led with a single and moved to second on a the second out of the inning, an infield grounder.
Fourth-ranked Case (19-6) stranded seven baserunners, two in the third inning. Their hits came off the bats of Megan Smith, Olivia Silva, and Bri Fontes.
Emera Marcello’s two-out triple in the fourth inning was wiped off the books when Amesbury (24-1) successfully appealed she failed to tag first base.
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"Tough pitcher. She did a good job," said Case coach Shannon Silva. "We got some hits, just couldn't string enough together today."
Amesbury had beaten Case 11-1 in last year’s state semifinals.
The 5-foot-11 DeLong is bound for Boston University to play softball.
Case’s furthest advancement on the bases was second base, which the Cardinals managed in the second and third innings.
In the second, Berube led with a walk and Abigail Sirois sacrificed. A strikeout and foul pop-up to first ended that threat.
In the third, Smith’s one-out single and Silva’s two-out single left runners at first and second before DeLong got cleanup batter Orton on a comebacker.
“I thought we had it. We just couldn’t push any runs across the board,” Case third baseman Brooke Orton said. “They beat us to it. I don’t really think (DeLong) was really overpowering, but she had a good pitch on the outside corner that got us. We popped up a lot, too, which didn’t help us.”
Nine of the 21 Case outs were pop-ups or fly balls.
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Case softball falls to Amesbury in Division 4 MA state championship
