47.0°,
Overcast Clarke repeats as county champs
With a split of its last six regular-season games after busting out of the gate with seven straight victories, including six shutouts, defending Long Island and Nassau Class A softball champion Clarke wasn’t firing on all cylinders heading into the playoffs.
But, with a machine-like pitching performance from senior Sarah Cornell and some timely hitting, the second-seeded Lady Rams overpowered the competition to claim a second straight county title. They completed the repeat May 25 at Mitchel Athletic Complex with a 4-1 victory over top-seeded Carey in the second game of the best-of-three championship series.
On the heels of a 19-strikeout performance in a 4-0 series-opening win, Cornell struck out nine, scattered four hits and helped her own cause by going 3-for-4 with an RBI and run scored in the bottom of the first as Clarke (17-3) picked up where it left two days earlier when it scored all of its runs in the last two innings.
“It’s awesome,” Lady Rams coach Rachel Barry said. “We struggled a bit offensively the second time through the conference and Carey took it away from us, but our postseason play has been great.”
Carey (17-3), which split regular-season meetings with Clarke and captured the Conference A-I crown, appeared in the county finals for a third straight year and tried its best to force a deciding third game for the second year in a row. The Lady Seahawks finally broke through against Cornell in the top of the sixth when Amanda Ulzheimer’s two-out single brought home Brianna Pinto. However, Ulzheimer was caught stealing by catcher Brooke Scherer to end the rally and the Lady Rams provided their Hofstra-bound pitcher with two huge insurance runs in the home half of the inning.
“It definitely helped me breathe easier,” said Cornell, who had a three-run cushion after Victoria Sferrazza’s two-out single to right scored Aly Koustagiannis and Kirstin Cox. “Going into the seventh with a three-run lead took some of the pressure off,” she added.
Carey coach Anthony Turco, who said Cornell’s mastery in the first game was the most dominant effort by a high school softball pitcher he’s seen in 20 years, was pleased with how the Lady Seahawks played in what was their season finale.
“It’s tough because our girls worked so hard and wanted it just as bad as Clarke did,” Turco said. “There was no beating Sarah in the first game. She was in a zone like I’ve never seen before. Today, we did a good job putting the bat on the ball. We hit some balls hard, and they made plays behind her.”
Cox, a junior who anchors Clarke’s defense from shortstop, ignited double plays in the second and fifth. In the fourth, Sferrazza made an acrobatic catch in deep left off Rebecca Vilchez, and Sabrina Caputo hauled in a deep drive to center off the bat of Samantha Romanello. “They’ve got some big bats and we made some defensive plays that really boosted us,” Barry said.
The Lady Rams, who finished state runners-up in 2015, will battle Mount Sinai for the Long Island Class A title on Friday at 3:30 p.m. at Hofstra.
