12th Annual Dalton CRA Softball Wraps Up
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DALTON, Mass. – Of the four age groups at the 12th annual CRA Softball Tournament, just one was won by a team from outside Berkshire County.
But even that team had a Berkshires flavor.
Drury High School junior Brooke Bishop went 4-for-4 with an RBI triple and three runs scored Sunday to lead the Brunswick, N.Y., Blitz 16-and-under team to an 8-6 win over the Pittsfield-based Mass Destruction in the tournament finale.
Bishop said her association with the Troy area team began a couple of summers ago out of necessity.
“I used to play for [Adams-Cheshire-Savoy], but two years ago, when COVID happened, they weren’t playing at the time,” Bishop said. “So [the Blitz] called me and said, ‘Hey, we need a catcher.’ So here I am.
“It’s a lot of fun. I like the team atmosphere and everything, too.”
Bishop said it takes her about 55 minutes to get to the home field of the New York team – only about 10 minutes longer than it would take her to get to Pittsfield.
She is making the trip this summer along with another North County high school athlete, McCann Tech junior Jaelyn Deeley.
Together, they helped Brunswick to a pair of wins over Halfmoon, N.Y., and the ACS Swat in Saturday’s pool play. In Sunday’s quarter-finals, Brunswick got past the Greylock Thunder in the quarter-finals and the Berkshire Liberty in the semis to set up a date with the top-seeded Destruction, which earned a bye into the semis.
Three tournament titlists were named on Sunday.
In the 12U age group, the Berkshire Force finished a 4-0 weekend with a 12-0, three-winning win over Rip City Academy.
In the 14Us, the Berkshire Visors beat Dalton, 10-1, in five innings in the final.
16U Division Championship
The Mass Destruction took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first on RBIs by Audrina Maloney and Elena Iovieno.
Amanda Pou got the rally started when she reached on a one-out infield single. Kamryn Renata then drew a walk ahead of Maloney’s double to left. Renata the came home on Iovieno’s groundout to put the Destruction up by a run.
It stayed that way until the third, when the Blitz scored four times to take a 5-2 lead.
The Destruction got a pair back in the bottom of the fourth when Nat Arnhold and Ella Bassi both scored on a base hit by Mia Arpante.
But Brunswick added two in the fifth and one more in the seventh on Bishop’s triple to right-center to stretch its lead to 8-4.
The insurance came in handy.
Maloney (4-for-4) hit a one-out single in the seventh, and Iovieno followed with a two-run blast to right-center, punctuating her inside-the-park round-tripper with a headfirst slide into home to make it a two-run game.
Navaeh Lopez then kept the Destruction’s momentum going with a single to right.
But Brunswick’s Olivia Cappelano got the next batter on a strikeout and the final out on a line drive to third to strand Lopez at first and end the game.
Pou went the distance for Mass Destruction in the circle, striking out eight.
14U Division Championship
Ember Raifstanger led off the bottom of the first with a solo home run, and the Berkshire Visors never looked back.
The Great Barrington-based squad scored two more runs in the first thanks to Lucy Dohoney’s RBI triple and Mya Dupont’s RBI single.
And it added three more in the second to take a 6-0 lead.
Grenna Free had the big blow in that rally, a two-run home run to center field.
Raifstanger (3-for-3) drove in a run in the third, and the Visors added three more in the fourth.
Free doubled and scored on Lexi Carpenter’s homer to right in the fourth, which also saw Dohoney (2-for-3) reach on an infield single and score on an RBI groundout from Brooke Decker.
Dalton scored its lone run in the third, when Delana Helms tripled down the first base line and scored on a pitch that got to the backstop.
Sydney Payson and Rylan Lamb each singled for Dalton, which got a double from Rylee Kinzer.
After the Visors opened up a nine-run lead in the bottom of the fourth, Mya Dupont worked a 1-2-3 fifth to end the game on the eight-run mercy rule. Dupont had two of her eight strikeouts in setting down the side in order.
