Minisink scores 3 in 9th for victory over Kingston

Minisink Valley scored three runs in the top of the ninth inning and held on to defeat Kingston High’s softball team 5-3 in an Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association contest.

Minisink Valley scored three runs in the top of the ninth inning and held off to defeat Kingston High’s softball team 5-3.

“That was a rough one,” admitted Kingston coach Trishann Hayes, who saw Lauren Shambo shut out Minisink for six innings before the final frame and the Tigers strand seven runners in the final four innings.

Kingston (4-3) came back to tie at 2-2. The deadlock stood until a leadoff error, a passed ball and Alayna Savaglio’s bunt single had two runners on with none out. Arianna Guarracino’s tworun single highlighted the rally.

Kaitlynn Schrowang, who had three hits, hit a RBI single to pull the Tigers within 5-3 with two on in the bottom of the ninth, but Savaglio got a pop up to end the game.

Savaglio struck out 10 in a complete-game effort to outduel Shambo, who fanned six and walk two in her nine-inning stint.

“When we make the little errors, those errors hurt us. That’s literally what hurt us today and Minisink capitalized off of them,” Hayes said.

Two of Minisink’s runs were unearned. A one-out error opened the door to two Warrior runs in the second.

Schrowang got the first of her two doubles in the fourth and scored on Megan Peace’s single. Shawna Smith, who reached on a bunt single to start the fifth, scored on a wild pitch to tie at 2-2.

Kingston, which out-hit Minisink 8-6, could never get a clutch hit. It left a runner on third base in the sixth, the bases loaded in the seventh and a player at second in the eighth. The Tigers left a dozen runners on base overall.

Alyssa Finno had a pair of singles for Kingston.

The Tigers, whose game Friday against Washingtonville was rained out, host Pine Bush on Monday.