Ulster Fillies place 2nd at 18U Open/A Nationals

The Kingston American Legion Post 150 Ulster Fillies posted their best showing ever in an 18-and-under Open or A softball Nationals, placing second.

In the deepest run in an Open or A Nationals event by a Fillies squad in the program’s 23-year history, the team stormed out of the losers bracket to push the defending champion Delaware Express to a winner-take-all game. Delaware won 4-1 to repeat.

Ulster played 13 games in the five-day tourney, going 10-2-1.

The Fillies won their bracket and earned a No. 1 seed by blanking the Emmanus Sting Fastpitch 5-0 and the Diamond Elite 4-0 and playing Akademia to a 2-2 tie.

They posted two more shutouts, beating the Branchburgh Blaze 8-0 and the Connecticut

Freedom Elite 2-0.

The Diamond State Swoop sent the Fillies into the losers bracket with a 6-1 loss.

Facing elimination, Ulster won four consecutive games. It downed the

Sting Elite 9-0, the Brewster Rockets 5-1 and the New Jersey Mystic Premiere 7-4.

The Fillies then avenged their loss to the Swoop, rallying for five runs in their final at-bat to score a 7-6 walk-off victory.

After defeating the Heartbreakers 18U Gold 5-1 in the losers bracket final, the Fillies edged the Express 5-4 in the championship

round to force a deciding second game.

Kingston High graduate Jessica Chilcott, who will attend Iona College in the fall, was named the tournament’s Defensive Most Valuable Player.

Other Fillies players and their college homes included Tori Decker (Cobleskill), Alyssa Finno and Megan Peace (Cortland),

Sydney and Shannon Bonewit (East Stroudsburg), Kailey Collins (Ithaca), Amanda Owens (Adelphi), Vanessa Brandt (Potsdam) and Kara Zazzaro (Iona). Also on the team are Jackie Rometo (Valley Central) and Melody Kappel (Greenville).

The team was coached by Rick Spriggs, Mike Chilcott and Trishann Hayes.