Fire Department Rallys to Dalton CRA Softball Title Game Win
DALTON, Mass. -- Edriana Collins scored from third on the ball to the backstop to cap a three-run, fifth-inning rally and a come-from-behind win for the Fire Department in Saturday’s Dalton CRA Softball League Junior Division Championship Game.
Fire Department outlasted the American Legion, 6-5, in a game that saw the lead change hands twice and the eventual winners trailing by two-runs late.
Samantha Kaley struck out 14 in six innings of work to get the win in the circle.
She outdueled American Legion’s Ella Doughty, who struck out four and scattered five hits in the loss.
The game-winning rally started with one of those hits, a leadoff double to center field by Fire Department’s Izzy Blake. She went to third on the play and came home one batter later on Becca Broderick’s RBI groundout to the right side to make it 5-4.
Kaley was then thrown out from the outfield trying to stretch a single into a double, and Fire Department was down a run with two out and nobody on base.
Emma Jacinto gave her team life when she was hit by a pitch and got into scoring position on a ball to the backstop.
Collins then drove her home on a single to the outfield and aggressively took advantage of defensive miscues to go all the way to third with two out and the game tied.
She then scampered home when a pitch to Abigail Munday got to the backstop, and Fire Department retook the lead, 6-5.
Kaley worked a 1-2-3 top of the sixth -- striking out a pair -- to put the game away.
Fire Department grabbed an early lead with two runs in the bottom of the first. Jacinto singled, and Harper Keay recorded an RBI single in the frame.
American Legion got on the board in the top of the third, cashing in on a couple of Fire Department errors in a four-run rally.
Breanna Sumy-Ledbetter got things started with a leadoff double to left, and Marleigh White, Grace Farley and Madison McCarthy each had a hit in making it 4-2.
American Legion tacked on a run in the fourth when Sumy-Ledbetter (2-for-3) singled and scored on Farley’s RBI single to make it 5-2.
Fire Department got one of those runs back in the bottom of the fourth.
Keay reached on a one-out single and took the next three bases on balls to the backstop to make it 5-3 and set the stage for the winning rally.
