Greylock Thunder Falls in Final of Summer Storm Tournament
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – One rough game in the field does not erase the 5-0 weekend that came before.
And it certainly won’t wipe out the 18-4 summer that preceded it.
But it was a major factor in costing the Greylock Thunder 14U travel softball team the title game of its home tournament.
The Thunder committed six errors in a four-inning, 14-0 loss to Greenfield’s Valley Storm Hurricanes in the finale of the second annual Summer Storm tourney.
Valley Storm pounded out 11 hits, including five extra base hits, and it got a four-inning no-hitter from pitcher and tournament MVP Olivia Lemay.
But it was the defensive miscues, including three in the second inning, when the visitors scored three times to take a 4-0 lead, that set the tone.
“The early miscues, they just got us down,” Thunder coach Mike Ameen said. “We started out slow, and good teams take advantage of that. That was it.
“They’re a good team, well coached, and we just tanked it, defensively, really. Once they get down, it snowballs from there.”
Valley Storm rolled into the championship game on a high after beating the Dutchess (N.Y.) Debs, 8-4, in an eight-inning thriller that saw Valley score six runs in extra innings.
And the No. 2 seed in the tournament bracket got all the offense Lemay needed in the top of the first.
Mia Shaw led off with a double, moved up on Carson Farrell’s sacrifice bunt and scored on a ground ball off the bat of Sami LaFlesh.
Thunder pitcher Avery Lane (two strikeouts) ended the half inning with a line drive out to Gianna Witek at short.
But Lemay set down the Thunder in order to get her team back to the plate, and the Storm started putting up crooked numbers: three in the second, four in the third and six in the fourth.
Bella Bramucci went 3-for-3 with a pair of RBIs, and Lemay was 2-for-3 with a double in the win.
The 14 runs scored by the Storm was one more than the 13 Greylock allowed in its first five games this weekend: four pool play games and a 13-1 win over Elite Fastpitch of Greene County, N.Y., on Sunday afternoon.
“We’re having a great summer,” Ameen said. “We’re 18-5 now for the summer. We played in four tournaments, and we finished third twice, first and second. So I’ll take that. Throw out this game, and we’ll move on with our lives.
The Thunder continues its season next weekend in Dalton for the CRA Tournament.
“Then we’re going to Rhode Island, and we’re going to New York and then we’re done,” Ameen said. “So we’ve got three more tournaments. We’ve played four already. … I tell them all the time, we’re 18-5, so that’s 23 games. I only played 22 games in the high school season, right? And we’ve got another three tournaments to go. So we’ve already played a full high school season in three or four weeks.
“That’s a lot of softball, a lot of heat. But they’re great kids.”
