Blazing Start Lifts Colonels Softball To Semis

Posted: May 20, 2015
By ALLEN BRIDGE
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — James Wood used its speed early and a strong pitching performances from freshmen Lani Spielman and Lauren King to knock off Dominion 5-0 in the quarterfinals of the Conference 21 softball tournament on Tuesday at Ridge field.

The third-seeded Colonels (16-5) will travel to No. 2 Sherando, an 11-5 winner over Millbrook, in Friday’s semifinals at 6 p.m. The teams split a pair of matchups in the regular season.

James Wood swiped four bases and played small ball by laying down bunts to score all five of its runs in the first two innings.

“We started out really strong driving the ball and playing small ball really well,” said James Wood coach Todd Baker. “We got some bunts down and then hit for some power and scored some runs.”

Sophomore third baseman Alyssa Brown led off with a single in the bottom of the first. Brown then stole second base.

Courteney Harper singled to give the Colonels runners on the corners with one out before freshman catcher Lindsey Anderson smashed a two-run double to open the scoring.

“We can play small ball and a lot of girls can go on both sides of the plate to keep teams off-balance, “ Baker said. “One thing I liked about this team early on was that we had good team speed and I’m the type of coach as well as my other coaches who aren’t afraid to take some chances.”

After a groundout from freshman King moved the courtesy runner Sydney Furr to third, senior Taylor Rizzari (2 for 3) hit an RBI single to score Furr to make it 3-0 after one inning.

Giving up a leadoff hit to start the game, Spielman (seven strikeouts) settled down and struck out the next three batters to end the first and then had a three-up, three-down inning in the second.

“I thought the team did really well today,” Spielman said. “We hit well and played some great defense. I was kind of nervous at the beginning with it being my first game in the playoffs but I knew we would do well with our fantastic defense and good hitting.”

With one out, junior Taylor Woolsey got things going again for the Colonels in the second inning with a single. Woolsey then stole second and trotted home as Brown (2 for 4) smacked a triple.

Senior McKenzie Garrett plated Brown on a RBI single giving the Colonels the 5-0 lead. The Colonels had an opportunity to do more damage in the inning but ended up grounding into a fielder’s choice at third and another groundout to first to end the inning.

The Colonels had 10 hits in the first two innings. Dominion (6-14) allowed just two hits from there.

“I have to hand it to Dominion, they made some plays late,” Baker said. “They kept us off the bases but they did a good job of holding us down in the late innings and they weren’t going away.”

Every time it seemed that the Titan batters got ahead in the count on Spielman, she came back to retire the batters with the help of her defense. With a runner on first in the third inning, Spielman recorded her fifth strikeout, and then got some help from Garrrett who made a diving catch to end the inning.

Spielman went three-up, three-down in the fourth, recording two more strikeouts before giving up a leadoff single in the fifth.

The runner advances to third on two groundouts before Spielman came retied the side on a pop-up.

“We played five really good innings of softball,” said Dominion coach Gary Temple. “We took too long to warm up in the first two innings and that was the problem for us. Both teams played well and made plays but we just didn’t have enough offense today to get it done.”

King relieved in the final two innings, striking out three batters and giving up only a two-out double in the seventh inning.

With Dominion threatening to score. King delivered a strikeout to end the game.