By Angela Watts
Managing Content Editor, DigitalSports.com
** Look below the story to find two separate video players containing dozens of highlights from the National District baseball and softball tournament championship games.**
Yorktown’s baseball and softball teams did exactly what they were expected to do during Saturday’s National District tournament championship games — they won.
Yorktown’s softball team, a 9-4 winner over Mount Vernon on Saturday,
has already amassed a school-record 19 wins this season. And the
Patriots’ baseball team, a 4-1 victor over Edison, is in the midst of a
17-game win streak, the longest of any Northern Region team.
But now both Patriot teams are hoping to do something a little less predicted — compete for their respective Northern Region crowns.
“I think we just want to prove that we can do it,” Yorktown junior pitcher Hannah Bauman said. “Yorktown [softball] has never gone further than one game in regionals, but we have a lot of potential this year and we really want this. We want to prove that this tiny school can go out there and make a name for ourselves. And this would be the year to do it. We’ve got a lot of talent … and we’re ready to show it.”
Added junior pitcher Kyle Toulouse : “We just want to prove that we can compete with everybody. We have the longest streak going in the Northern Region for wins … and still we don’t get a lot of respect because we’re in the National District. So it’s time for us to make a name for ourselves and prove to everybody that this isn’t a fluke.”
Yorktown’s softball team made quick work of visiting Mount Vernon in its district title game, jumping to a 9-0 lead after six innings of play. The Majors kept battling — and with the help of a two-run home run by junior first baseman Jessica Wessinger made enough of a rally in the top of the seventh inning to put a bit of a scare in the Patriots. But Bauman, who had moved out of the pitching circle and into the outfield to start the seventh, switched places with junior Olivia Merrion after three runs had scored to secure the game’s final out.
For the game, Bauman yielded only two hits while striking out five and walking none.
“Hannah is our ace,” Yorktown Coach Al Richardson said. “But I felt that the game was well enough along that I wanted to see, especially since we’re going to regionals, what my No. 2 pitcher could do against the top of their lineup. And she got the first two batters out … but then she called me out there and said that the one pitch we’d been working on really wasn’t breaking that well, so I said, ‘No problem.’ We brought Hannah back in to finish out the game.”
There was a more drama in the baseball game on the adjacent field, as the host Patriots held a much more precarious, three-run lead in the top half of the sixth inning and faced a bases-loaded situation with no outs. But Toulouse, who went the distance on the mound for Yorktown, worked himself out of the jam with considerable help senior first baseman Brady Rall.
Toulouse got one Edison batter to fly out to shortstop, and then recorded a strikeout for the second out of the inning. That’s when Rall took over. Eagle senior designated hitter Zac Crigler fired a line-drive shot between first and second base that appeared it would score at least two runs. But Rall reacted quickly, half-diving and half-lunging to his right to make the snag that ended the threat.
“We really needed to make that play,” Rall said. “Bases were loaded, we were only up by three and I knew that a hit could change the ballgame completely. I saw the ball was hit hard … and it was just gut reaction on my part, nothing more. But I’m happy that I made the play for sure.”
Email: awatts@digitalsports.com
SOFTBALL
Mount Vernon 000 000 4 — 4
Yorktown 102 132 X — 9
BASEBALL
Edison 010 000 0 — 1
Yorktown 021 010 X — 4
SOFTBALL HIGHLIGHTS
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