CLASSIE LASSIES SLIDE INTO FINALS
10U softball side upset host Miss Shen Thunder
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. » The Wynantskill-based Classie Lassies Boom 10U softball team made the most of their entry into the Miss Shen Softball Slide Into Summer tournament at the Clifton Common, sporting a 5-1 overall record, upsetting the No. 2 seeded Miss Shen Thunder in extra innings and advancing to its first championship game this year. The run ended in the final against the Saratoga Miss Thunder Red.
The Classie Lassies lowered the boom on Saturday’s pool play competition, opening with an 18-6 win over the Miss Shen Pirates, following up with a 12-0 shutout of the Burnt Hills Spartans Wrath and a 6-1 win over the Ulster Fillies.
As the No. 3 seed Sunday, the Classie Lassies Boom dismissed the North Colonie Chaos to face the No. 2 seeded Miss Shen Thunder. The game needed extra innings to determine who would advance to the championship.
“We’ve come close and Saratoga and Shen have been our nemesis, so we knew we needed to get by one of them to get here and that was our goal today,” Classie Lassies Boom manager Katy Lucey said. “Our goal was whoever we faced to get by them to get here. Anything else was an added bonus. Now we raise the bar.”
The road to the championship game wasn’t easy Sunday as the Miss Shen Thunder jumped out to a 3-0 lead before knotting the game at three runs apiece off a new Clifton Park pitcher.
The Wynantskill squad wasn’t done. An infield single plated two more of the Boom’s base runners
for a 5-3 lead heading into the sixth inning and time was running out on the Miss Shen Thunder...literally.
During tournament play, the contest had time limits to keep the weekend on schedule, including an eight-run mercy rule after 4 ½ innings and a 90 minute game clock. Miss Shen had its final at-bats, along with a 10-minute window to tie, win and advance, or force extra innings.
In the heat, the Miss Shen Thunder mustered two more runs to knot the game at five runs apiece and force a no time limit set of extra innings.
Under the tournament rules, a runner is placed on
second base for each batting team to start the inning — softball’s international tie-breaker rule.
Lauren McMeel started on second and scored quickly on an error by the third baseman for a 6-5 Boom lead. An RBI single and throw to home couldn’t cut down the next base runner and another RBI single scored another run for an 8-5 lead. A successful groundout to first scored another Boom base runner and the Classie Lassies took a commanding 9-5 lead in the top of the seventh inning.
“I’ve been in a tournament before in elimination game with the international tie breaker and it’s tough,” Lucey said. “It’s tough to score; it’s tough to defend against.
“They somewhere, somehow dug deep and turned it on and they didn’t stop. I expected maybe one or two, but they put up four and that was really impressive, it was all them. All I had to tell them was ‘Run, run!’ they did it all.”
Miss Shen mustered two runs in its half of the seventh inning only to see their hopes dashed on a game-ending tag out at third base to end the contest and advance Boom to the Slide into Summer championship contest.
The Saratoga Miss Thunder Red took advantage of its No. 1 seed, eliminating the Berkshire Force, 9-1 in its earlier semifinal and getting time rest up, hydrate and await the opposite bracket contest to finish. The Boom — tired, but not out of gas — were unnerved by a five run Saratoga Miss Thunder lead heading into its own final
at-bats Sunday afternoon.
The Classie Lassies squad pushed across two runs of its own, the most runs against Saratoga Miss Thunder the entire tournament, but didn’t have enough to take home the gold medal.
The experience this weekend sets up the Boom for more success this year.
“Now they know that they can get here and next time they come and they take it all,” Lucey said. “We play next weekend, in our tournament.
“We have 15 teams in ours, another big tournament a lot of the same teams that were here will be there. It’s a great way to prepare going into our own tournament, Shen will be there and we hope to see them in the championship and we want to bring the mantle home.”