Prior to April 23, you’d have to go back before COVID to find the last time Patchogue-Medford’s softball team suffered a shutout loss.
The Raiders were stymied by Riverhead pitcher Amber Farruggia, who tossed a complete-game four-hitter and got home run support from Jordyn Kwasna and Eden Greenwood in a 4-0 Blue Waves victory.
“Our bats were just off,” Pat-Med coach Alexa D’Onofrio said. “We scored 13 runs against Riverhead the first time. It just shows anything can happen any day and we have to bring it every day.”
It was also just the second setback this spring for the Raiders, who responded in a big way six days later with a shutout win of their own. They completed a season sweep of Walt Whitman with a 3-0 road triumph, thanks in large part to the pitching of sophomore Arianna Kelly-Weihberg (nine strikeouts in her first shutout of the season) and the ability to manufacture runs.
“We’re using our speed and squeezed home two of the three runs,” D’Onofrio said. “It was a big win. Whitman’s pitcher is a talented eighth grader [Brynn Iacovone] who throws hard. We were able to put the ball in play a lot and executed to get some runs.”
The Raiders scored in the top of the third, fourth and fifth innings against Iacovone, who was coming off a no-hitter against Half Hollow Hills. Each time, their leadoff batter reached and scored. Junior Morgan Harper singled in the third and scored on sophomore Cailyn Rose-Freaney’s single. Senior Allie Reynolds walked to open the fourth and advanced to third on sophomore Katelynn Rodriguez’s double. Reynolds was then squeezed home on a bunt by Harper for a 2-0 lead. In the fifth, sophomore catcher Pressley Hamilton bunted home freshman Sofia Demasi for an insurance run in the fifth.
With convincing wins over Brentwood and Floyd to cap last week, Pat-Med locked up a postseason berth and stands at 11-2 in League 1 and is neck-and-neck with Sachem East in the race for the regular-season title. The last time the Raiders won a league championship was in 2006 when D’Onofrio was a freshman on the team.
Sachem East took the first matchup between the frontrunners, 4-1onApril 6, and visits the Raiders May 12 at 4:30 p.m. in a game that could determine first place, although Whitman, Riverhead, Longwood and Half Hollow Hills are far from done.
“It could come down to the Sachem East game, but there are plenty of tough opponents remaining,” D’Onofrio said. “We just have to focus on one day at a time.”
A youthful lineup with only one senior—Reynolds—has produced double digits in runs in more than half of the games so far to support the arms of Kelly-Weihberg and Rose-Freaney.
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