It is no secret that No. 10 Lockport and Stagg are the top two softball teams in the SICA West and right up there with the best in the area.
Thursday’s meeting in Lockport was certainly indicative of that.
A pitchers’ duel between Stagg’s Melissa Cozzi and Lockport’s Shannon Lindgren took nine innings to settle. In the end, the difference was two hard-luck hops that resulted in two key errors in the top of the ninth.
That’s what lifted the Chargers to a 1-0 victory over the Porters.
“There is always luck involved,” Stagg’s Rachel Gensch said after she scored the winning run after reaching on an error with one out.
“In games like this, either you’re going to score on errors or the hits are going to go in. It just so happened that they made the errors.”
The Chargers improved to 16-4 overall and 2-0 in the league, while the defending state and conference champion Porters dropped to 13-7 and 0-2.
The Chargers had beaten Lockport by the same score Tuesday in seven innings.
“I think the kids played their hearts out,” Porters coach Barb Burk said. “I tell you what: They’re going to give it all they’ve got, no matter whom they play, and they have nowhere to go but up.”
The Porters showed just that in the bottom of the ninth. The Chargers had taken a 1-0 lead in the top half when Ana Patejdl’s grounder was booted by Lockport’s second baseman, freshman Amy Legmanowski, allowing Gensch to score, but the Porters didn’t go down without a fight.
Kristen Perry (2 for 4) started the inning with a single and Katie Blackmore followed with a walk. The next two batters hit into a fielder’s choice and a groundout, leaving runners on second and third with two out. Legmanowski just missed a two-out single up the middle, but the ball was flagged down by shortstop Gensch to end the game.
Both Cozzi (8-2) and Lindgren (6-4) went the distance. Cozzi struck out six, walked one and scattered four hits. Lindgren collected 11 strikeouts while walking one and surrendering just three hits.
“I’ve been playing against a lot of these girls since I was 8 years old, and I knew this would be a tough win,” Cozzi said.
“I knew they wanted it just badly as we did. Luck so has it that we won.”
