Halfmoon, N.Y. Edges Greylock in Extra Innings in Tourney Finale
It liked North Adams even more after driving home with a first-place trophy.
Halfmoon rallied for three runs in the bottom of the seventh and scored in the bottom of the eighth to take a 7-6 win over the Greylock Thunder in the title game of the Summer Storm Tournament on Sunday afternoon.
Olivia Johnson went 3-for-3 with a pair of RBIs, including a sacrifice fly to tie the game in the seventh inning, and made a number of stellar plays in the field to lead the way for the visitors from New York’s Capital District.
When Kelsey Smith bunted to score Chesyca Darrah from third base with nobody out in the bottom of the eighth, it was a disappointing end to a great tournament run for the Thunder, which went 4-2, avenging its pool play loss to South Troy in the semi-finals and scoring twice in the bottom of the sixth for a walkoff win against the Berkshire Force in Sunday morning’s quarter-final game.
“We played awesome this weekend,” Thunder coach Mike Ameen said. “We beat the Force twice. We beat [South Troy] – they beat us the first game [Saturday morning], and we came back and avenged our loss. That was great.
“[In the quarter-finals], it was the same thing as [Halfmoon] did here. We were down two runs in the last inning or so. We got a run [in the fifth] to make it 3-2. And then, two outs, Avery Lane had two strikes on her; she fouled off four pitches in a row and lines a base hit up the middle and we scored two runs.
We had the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. We experienced it all in about two hours.”
Greylock led throughout the championship game – the only game of the three-day tournament played to seven innings with no time limit.
Gianna Witek got things started by earning a leadoff walk, stealing second and third and scoring on a wild pitch in the top of the first to give the Thunder a 1-0 lead.
“She’s always on base and she steals,” Ameen said. “She’s an instinctive baserunner. When she’s on base, she takes that extra base.
“She’s going to score a lot of runs the next few years. She’s on base all the time.”
Witek went on to walk two more times and score three runs for the Thunder.
In the third, she drew a one-out walk to start a three-run rally.
Genevieve Lagess and Kenadi Arnhold hit back-to-back singles, and Emma Lemire hit an RBI groundout to help Greylock take a 4-0 lead.
Halfmoon got one run back in the bottom of the third.
But Greylock scored single runs in the fifth and sixth to stretch its lead to 6-1.
In the fifth, Kenadi Arnhold’s sacrifice fly plated Witek. In the sixth, Alana Olmedo hit a leadoff single and eventually scored on Avery Lane’s RBI single to right to give the Thunder a five-run lead with six outs to go.
The Aftershock made the most of those outs.
Halfmoon scored twice in the bottom of the sixth despite standout defensive plays from Lemire in right, Marlene Eason and Kyleigh Cooper at second.
In the seventh, Halfmoon’s Maddie Veeder and Olivia Dowd started the inning with back-to-back singles, and Maddie Ernst doubled to drive in Dowd to make it 6-5. After Isabella Rapp’s sac bunt moved Ernst to third, Johnson’s sac fly tied the game.
Thunder pitcher Marlee Arnhold struck out four and did not allow a walk in her third complete game in the circle on the hot mid-July day.
“I was about three minutes away from naming her my MVP,” Ameen said, alluding to the honor bestowed on a member of the winning team. “She was going to be it. She pitched every inning today. She beat the Force the first time. There was a little rivalry there in a friendly way.
“She’s a warrior out there. Literally, right. She plays for the [Wahconah High] Warriors. She gave it her all. And she deserves to be in that position.”
