ESG - Softball
Western rallies to break medal drought
by MATT KRUEGER Reporter

Amherst's Dana Webb fouls off a pitch during Western's 13-4 win over Central Friday afternoon at Delfino Park in White Plains. Western won four games in a row to capture the bronze medal. Photo by Marc A. Deley Purchase color photos at www.BeeNews.com

Like a good long distance runner, the Western Region softball team started slowly and picked up speed later at the Empire State Games this past weekend. Then it kicked into high gear when it mattered most.

West lost its first three games of the tournament and trailed late in the fourth game, before running off four straight victories, including three on Saturday, to win the bronze medal.

Thursday, Western lost to New York City, 7-6, and Long Island, 8-5. It then dropped the early game Friday to Adirondack, 6-1, to make things look bleak. But a three-run home run by Alden's Jordan Rutkowski in the sixth inning of Friday's 13-4 win over Central, Rutkowski ignited a huge turnaround. Western had trailed, 3-1, when Rutkowski put Western on top.

Western went on to win three games Saturday over Hudson Valley, 4-1, New York City, 2-1, and Central, 13-2, in the bronze medal game.

"When you start off 0-3 and the kids battle their butts off the whole time, it feels terrific," coach Joe Catalano said. "We struggled early, we didn't play our game. We would have loved to play in the gold-medal game, but for the way we battled back and played so hard, I'm happy. I'm very happy for the girls."

What made the turnaround even better is that the team didn't rely on just its pitchers and a couple big bats. This was a total team effort from Orchard Park's Ashley Bonetto laying down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move the runner in the win over Hudson Valley, to Amherst's Dana Carter diving into first base with a head-first slide to keep the inning alive in the tiebreaker against New York City, to North Tonawanda's Katie Miranto blasting a two-run homer in the bronze medal game.

"We have, hands down, 14 starters on our team," said Carter, who was still wiping the dirt off her jersey hours after making that slide into first. "I think that made it that much harder, but better all the way around. We all learned to sit the bench, we all took turns. Big plays were made by everyone."

And the pitching was good. Cheektowaga's Samantha Thompson came on in relief of North Tonawanda's Marylynn Arlotta in the crucial victory over Central Friday night and gave the team a huge start against Hudson Valley the next morning. Arlotta pitched well in the tiebreaker against New York City and the bronze medal game.

"Sam and Marylynn have never faced competition like this," Catalano said. "They're both Division III pitchers, and to come in and have to face a host of Division I hitters is tough. I thought they did a pretty good job."

The team averaged more than six runs per game. Amherst's Dana Webb led the team with eight runs and went 6 for 15 at the plate. Buffalo's Lauren Picciano led the team with nine RBIs to go along with her six runs and .423 batting average. Carter went 4 for 11 with two runs. Depew's Kristin Brunetto scored seven runs and hit .318.

"We knew we could hit the ball," Catalano said. "We've got a terrific hitting team. Everybody got hot in different games, which made it nice for us."

The bronze was the first medal Western has won since the 2003 Games in Buffalo. Many of the girls on this year's team played last year, when the team thought it had a great chance at winning, but fell short in the bronze medal game. That motivated the returning girls to step up their play this year.

"Coming in last year with an excellent team and just missing the bronze medal by a little bit, we really wanted to come back and get it this year," Brunetto said.

"It's a lot of motivation. We are disappointed that we weren't in the gold medal game, but to us a medal is a medal. We just wanted something. We wanted to do better than we did last year, and we did."

e-mail: mkrueger@beenews.com