Teamwork propels Shen past Averill Park
AVERILL PARK, N.Y. » It was a total team effort for the Shenendehowa Plainsmen softball team, in their 4-0 victory over the Averill Park Warriors. All facets of the game were clicking for the Plainsmen, offense, pitching and defense.
“I think we were in the game for seven innings,” head coach Chris Farquharson. “We just talked about that in the outfield, playing a complete game, focused, the intensity, cheering for one another and I think when the kids were on the field or at bat they knew they had the team’s back just supporting them.”
The supportive theme rang true throughout the squad.
Setting the tone early at the plate was Sophia Caputo.
“I just wanted to be really selective swinging at good pitches that I knew I could drive in the gaps,” Caputo said following a 2-for-3 afternoon at the plate, including a home run.
It was Caputo and Kira Konarski trading places with consecutive doubles off Warriors pitcher Kiley Gavitt, which staked the Plainsmen to a 1-0 advantage in the top of the first.
Equally impressive toeing the rubber was Emily Albanese.
“She pitched the ball well, Emily threw the ball, hit her spots,” Farquharson said of the Messiah College-bound hurler. “There’s some good hitters on that team. I think she just kept
them off balanced going and just mixing her pitches and I’m real proud of how she pitched.”
Pounding her glove before pounding the strike zone, Albanese put her spin on her four-strikeout shutout.
“It’s really adrenaline to be honest,” Albanese said. “Once I get in a groove, I just kind of feel it and once I get that release point down it just kind of keeps going from there on out and I trust my abilities at that point and so many people help support me so that helps as well, they lift me up.”
Albanese also credited her defense and chronicled how she worked out of a fifth inning jam, which saw the Warriors threaten to tie the game at two, with runners in scoring position and two outs.
“When I got out there I was just thinking, pitching is a very mental game. You just kind of got to ignore the crowd and just kind of stick with it, trust your abilities, trust the practice you’ve been doing all winter, your whole life and I just kind of did what I had to do to support my team,” Albanese said. “I just thought about spinning the ball, because spinning it is key and that can lead to pop outs and more plays. I trust my defense a lot, they’re great. I have a lot of awesome teammates to back me up too, so that helps a lot.”
While the scrappy Warriors tried to scratch across some runs with some small ball, they just couldn’t quite catch a break, which was also a credit to the Plainsmen defense. A lack of playing outside likely didn’t help the timing of their hitters either.