Ballston Spa softball edges Columbia for AA title
MALTA, N.Y. » Henry Ford was quoted as saying ‘ Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement,” and that was how it worked out for Ballston Spa freshman Ana Gold and the Ballston Spa softball team Tuesday afternoon in the Section II Class AA title game.
Her game-winning run on a daring race home only came after she made a misstep between first and second, but her speed in both instances led the Scotties to their second title in three years, a 2-1 win over Columbia High School.
Failure to make contact on a bunt left Gold hung up between first and second base, she took off for second and slid in safely, the call once the dust cleared a the Luther Forest Recreation Fields. A hard grounder by Megan McMahon to second base put Gold in motion not only towards third but all the way around to score the game-winner and advance the Scotties to the Class AA sub-regional against Cicero-North Syracuse Thursday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. back at Luther Forest fields.
“I’m speechless, I mean, it’s a great feeling to come back out here to get a win again, two years later,” Ballston Spa coach
Amanda Fifield said. “This is the third year in a row that we’ve been in this game.
“It was just the perseverance that this team has with Sarah Pritchard on the mound, phenomenal composure. The team pulling through base running has been winning our games for us.”
In the circle, Pritchard, who earned the ice bath seconds before her moments in front of the assembled television cameras, scattered nine hits and allowed one unearned run, walking a batter and striking out five for the win.
“It definitely helped a lot the just to have the confidence on the mound, you know,” Sarah Pritchard said. “The sun, it was really sunny is really hard to see but, my team had my back, especially offensively. “I wasn’t doing too well and so have my team definitely have my back on that was great.”
Ballston Spa took the first-inning lead when McMahon drew a one- out walk, was sacrifice bunted over by Angelina Stile and scores on Grace Thompson’s RBI double to left field.
Columbia knotted the contest in the top of the fifth inning when Meghan Dougherty led off with a single to left, advances by a hit by Taylor O’Brien and moved over on an error to lead the bases. A subse- quent error allowed Dougherty to score.
With the bases still loaded, O’Brien was forced out at home on the ensuing grounder and the next batter hit the ball back to Pritchard who threw to first to get out of the inning.
Columbia High School coach Chris Ciccone continued to move his players on the field throughout the contest, wearing out a path back and forth to the home plate umpire looking for the right match- ups, when available, looking to squeeze out any advantage for his young squad.
“We were very mindful of those matchups that, that we have to preserve down the road,” Chris Ciccone said. “Unfortunately sometimes we get in ourselves in a position where, where it was a must, that kid must be in the, at the plate or a kid, a lesser runner, must be at second base because of the, the way we have to preserve our bench, but we had to mix and match it all the way. We’ve got to play smart ball.”
As the Scotties were veterans to the championship final it has been a five-year hiatus for the Blue Devils and the new experience could prove invaluable for Columbia’s newest generation of softball players.
The way we ended the game with a sophomore catcher, first basement, shortstop, and a freshman third baseman, so to be in this position just to get here, we had to do an awful lot of work,” Ciccone said. “Then just to play a 2-1 and not roll over, I’m so proud of my team.
“You can’t take any- thing away from the victories from Ballston Spa. I just think we were out allstarred today. If you look at their roster and you go down that line, there’s an All- Star at every position. We’re not loaded, we just work harder.”
A loss last year in the final helped propel the Scotties to this year’s win and is expected to keep the Blue Devils engaged for another run next spring.
“We felt like this year we had an unfinished business kind of going into the sectional game,” Pritchard said. ‘ We knew we’d been here before. We knew we could win it and we came in with all the confidence.”
“We’ll be like, okay, so you saw what it looks like, you understand what the distractions are, how are you going to mitigate that for when we get back here next time?” Ciccone said. “I don’t think it’s going to be another five years before we’re back here and that’s the message that we’re going to give. Our kids are a very young crew.”