Kueny, Sheridan spark Ewing’s comeback win
EWING » When all else fails, what better thing to do than go back to some old-fashioned “Berno Ball.”
After spending the early part of the game beating itself, the Ewing High softball team reverted to its trademark short game Wednesday afternoon and the result was a dramatic. 5-4, victory over Wall in the second round of the Central Jersey Group III tournament.
A sectional finalist last year where it lost a one-run heart breaker to state runner-up Steinert, Ewing will be back in tourney action Friday against Northern Burlington.
“Speed kills,” stated Ewing coach Dan Bernoski after his team rallied with two runs in the fifth and two more in the seventh to send the Shore Conference team packing. “And today we were able to use it.”
To set the stage, Wall (9-12) moved out to a 4-1 lead after four innings thanks to some atrocious Ewing fielding that allowed all four runs to score on five errors.
Wall scored in the first when two errant throws on the same play resulted in a runner cruising home. In the third, Wall scored three times with just one hit when Ewing threw the ball away two more times and also had an infield error.
What looked like it might be unfortunate from a Ewing viewpoint was that while all of this was going on Lauren Christensen pitched a great game.
All four runs were unearned and the senior righty finished with a five-hitter. She also got stronger as the game went along and finished with 11 strikeouts. Helping her out in the sixth was a diving catch by second baseman Izzy Falzone.
Ewing’s first run came in the third when Anne Deboskey singled, Jentle Sheridan beat out a bunt and Julianna Nisen lofted a sac fly.
The Blue Devils then got back in the game with two in the fifth. This uprising started with singles by Sheridan and Devon Kueny, who both also stole second base.
Trailing by three runs in the fifth inning, the conventional thinking might have been to let Nisen swing away.
Bernoski had different ideas, however, and dialed up a suicide squeeze, which worked to perfection when Sheridan beat the throw home. Deanna Hedrick then hit a sac fly to score Kueny to cut the Wall lead to 4-3.
Trailing by one, it was a lot more of the same in the seventh when Sheridan again reached on a bunt single with one out and stole second.
Kueny then pulled a single to right to tie the score and moved into scoring position by again stealing second. Up stepped Nisen, who won the game with a hard double in the right center gap to easily score Kueny for her fourth RBI of the afternoon.
“Once we saw her (Wall pitcher Courtney Mahoney) a little bit I had faith in my teammates that we could get to her,” said Kueny.
Kueny finished with three hits for a Ewing team that had 10 overall. Sheridan also had three hits as she continued to show she can do a lot more than play basketball.
“Jentle has absolutely come a long way,” said Kueny. “And she’s only a sophomore. Imagine what she will do in the future.”
Echoed Bernoski: “Jentle has just gotten better and better. At first she really didn’t know how to bunt, but she sure knows now.”
In other words, Sheridan is fitting right in with Bernoski’s preferred style of play.
Wall (9-12) Ewing (13-9) 010 300 0 — 4 5 0 001 020 2 — 5 10 5
WP-Christensen. LP-Mahoney. 2B-Christensen, Nisen. RBIs: E-Nisen 4, Hedrick.