After two close games in the first week of their season, the modified girls' lacrosse team hosted Pal Mac last Tuesday, May 2, and enjoyed an easy win, 11-2. Brianna Modzel in goal made 7 saves, but the defense in front of her did a great job also.
We scored early: Mary Riley and Abby Notter had two goals in the first period, Caitlin Suchecki one for a 5-0 lead. Cassie Goodman scored in the second period, so we had a nice 6-0 lead a halftime.
Pal-Mac scored twice in the third period, and Jolyne Kane put one in for us. Megan McVeigh scored twice in the fourth, Morgan Lapresi and Shannon Murphy one each for the 11 points. Shannon also had an assist and Kelsey Knitter assisted on a goal as well. It was a real team effort.
The track teams hosted Penn Yan on Wednesday, May 03, in pretty nearly ideal conditions - sunny, warm, light breeze. All four teams (both boys' and girls' teams from both schools) went in with 1-1 records, and we came out with easy wins for both the girls and boys. With a 93.5-47.5 win the boys are now tied with Marcus Whitman for second place in the league. The girls' 101-40 win puts them into a second place tie with Waterloo in the league.
The girls' 400 hurdles was the first event and got us off to a great start: Sophie Lutzen and Brittany Jansen went 1, 2. The boys' 400 hurdles gave us a good start: Jamison Reed and Morgan Hoven went 1, 3. We swept the boys' 800 (Kyle Brown, Cullen Johnston, and Jon Armstrong); the boys' high jump (Jamison Reed, Riley O'Neil, Sully Fratto tied for 3rd with PY); and boys' discus (Chris Teed, Bryant Rice, and Bill Hanvey). The girls swept the 100 hurdles (Kaitlin VanderWeide, Erin Raeman, Ashley Vehec); the long jump (Samantha VanderBrook, Samantha Clay-Reagan, Kaitlin VanderWeide); and the triple jump (Kristin McGregor, Kaitlin VanderWeide, Erin Raeman).
The relay teams all won at all distances, and I only saw one near-disaster on a baton pass. By the fourth lap, we were comfortably ahead in all six races. The girls' 4x100 team was Tiffany Zadarlik, Kristin McGregor, Cortni McGregor, and Samantha Clay-Reagan. The 4x400 team led with Sam Clay-Reagan, followed by Alex Jones, Brittany Jansen, and Tiffany Zadarlik. The 4x800 team led with Sophie Lutzen, then Sara Green, Morgan Heusler, and Tiffany Johnston.
The boys' 4x100 team was Steve Rathbone, Matt Haintz, Aaron Dorman, and Nick Soler. Steve also led the 4x400 relay, followed by Jamison Reed, Aaron, and Matt.
The 4x800 relay team led off with Aaron Hoven, followed by Morgan Hoven, Matt Haintz, and Kyle Brown.
The 1600 was a bit frustrating. Kyle Brown set the pace; he was in a tight knot with Aaron Hoven, another Midlakes runner and a Penn Yan runner. This group stuck together for several laps, then the Midlakes trio tried to box out the PY man who adroitly moved to the outside and stayed in place. Then it was a two man race, PY drafting off Kyle for a few more laps before passing him and racing off with the win. Kyle made sure that didn't happen again, winning both the 800 and the 3200 comfortably (if you can call running that far that fast comfortable).
A somewhat similar thing happened to Meggin Duchesneau in the 3000. Here it was really a two-girl race, and PY kept a step or two off Meggin's right shoulder for most of the time but sped past her in the final 200 yards for the win.
While that was happening the Midlakes baseball and softball teams were playing Victor, and Victor won all four games quite decisively.
On Thursday the girls' modified lacrosse team traveled to Penn Yan and came away with a 7-6 victory. Coach Czerkas said, "For the second straight game goalie Brianna Modzel dominated the crease and slowed down the opposing team's offense." Shannon Murphy led our offense with 2 goals; Chelsea Campbell, Megan McVeigh, Emmy Clark, Jolyne Kane, and Abby Notter each netted one.
On Friday the jv boys' lacrosse team hosted Penn Yan with far different results. Goalie Mike Iannone had 11 stops, but it wasn't enough. The defense worked hard- Justin Huntsman, Conor Hogan, Patrick Middlebrook, Erik VanHooft, Greg Marks, Jason Batcheller, and Ben DesCamp were very aggressive, but it wasn't enough. Jared Strub scored at the end of a great passing sequence from Conor Hogan to Ben Uveges to Jared. Tom Cheney and Randy Sinack also scored for Midlakes in the 21-3 loss.
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Before talking about the very well-run softball tournament held on Saturday, May 13, I'd like to mention comments I've heard consistently all spring from spectators and opposing players. I hear things like, "this field is great compared to ours. Look at the nice soft grass, and their dirt is soft dirt, not concrete. Everything looks so nice." I've compacted things because I hear this, not just in the bleachers at softball or baseball games but also at lacrosse games. Rich McNear and his crew plus volunteers such as Brian Romeiser deserve medals for keeping things looking the way they do. Often the problem has been water in spring, and they have put in so many bridges. This year the problem has been lack of water, and yet everything looks green and "soft." When players and spectators from other places comment on it you know it's great.
The softball tournament had a major sponsor in Randall Farnsworth, and their banner graced the center field fence as teams from Lyons, North Rose and Marcus Whitman as well as Midlakes played two games each to determine an overall winner. Midlakes played Lyons in both first round games. The Midlakes jv team won the first game, 5-2, and faced Marcus Whitman for the championship.
Jane Petzoldt was pitching for us, and Emily Wright was catching but was soon sidelined with a blood blister on her hand. Clair Scheible replaced her and did a great job. The tone was set in the first inning. After a shaky start (first batter walked), Jane settled down to strike out the side. In our half of the inning we sent 10 batters to the plate, left the bases loaded and came away with 4 runs. Rachel Bloomer relieved Jane in the 4th inning and gave up one run. The final score was 17-1, giving Midlakes an easy championship win (5 inning mercy rule). Becky Dressner had 4 RBIs, Jane had 3 RBIs, Meredith Burns had 2 RBIs; Rachel, Ashley Lane and Stevie Hilfiker each had 1. The defense played really well - no errors. Jane struck out 8, walked 2 and gave up one hit in her 3 innings; Rachel gave up 2 hits, struck out one and walked one in her two innings.
The Midlakes varsity also defeated Lyons in the preliminary game, 15-0. We faced North Rose-Wolcott in the championship. Ashley Hall had pitched a no-hitter in the first game and was on the mound again. When a thunderstorm cut the game short halfway through the fifth, Midlakes was declared the winner with a 9-3 lead. In this game Ashley gave up 2 hits, walked 3 and struck out 10. Again the Midlakes girls played errorless ball. Liz Donk had 2 RBIs, including an in-the-park home run. Jeannette Frederick also had 2; Angie Antenucci and Maggie Bliven had one apiece. Ashley was named MVP of the tournament; Liz hit her way onto the all-tournament team with 2 singles, 2 doubles, a triple, and the above-mentioned home run.
The varsity boys' lacrosse team hosted Pal-Mac on Tuesday, May 16. I had not seen this team since their home opener against Bath. I thought the defense looked good, but P-M scored quickly. Apparently we were just getting warmed up; Nate Stevens came right back to tie the score and then Ryan Forshay, Ben Bengston, Wes Carlson, and Josh Sauve settled in and got stingy. P-M did not score again until the second half.
In the first period alone, Nate scored twice more, Glen Stevenson scored twice, Nick Newland and Jon Briggs also scored for the 7-1 first period score. We played good possession ball, passing well. The second period was not so crisp, marred with penalties.
Nate sat out, nursing an injury; Clay Hemminger managed the only scoring with 37 seconds left in the half.
The second half was also sloppy, with dropped passes and penalties. P-M scored twice in the 3rd period; Nick and Jon also scored to keep a comfortable lead. We found ourselves "down two men" in the fourth but managed to kill the penalty without any damage. P-M did score again later. I should mention that many of our penalties were the result of our guys retaliating against rough play, but like in basketball, the referees tend to see the second action. The final score was 10-4, and I counted 18 saves for Jared Schoonerman in goal.
The girls' and boys' track teams easily defeated the teams from Mynderse last Wednesday, but both teams finished in 2nd place in the league, behind Pal-Mac
That day I attended the modified softball game where the girls were hosting a team from Geneva. As usual at that level pitching was a problem. When you give up 6 walks in the top of the first inning things have to go really well from that point. Fortunately the Geneva pitcher gave up 6 hits to us and walked one in the bottom of the first inning, and the score was tied at 6. Our fielding and batting was better, but the walks continued to add up. I credited Gina Natoli, Shelby Willoughby, Alyssa Olsen, and Sam Dennis with RBIs. The score was 21-14 when I left, and I think it was over.
Coming off a 3-2 loss to Pal-Mac on Wednesday, the varsity baseball team celebrated "Senior Night" last Friday afternoon when they played their last regular season home game, against Penn Yan. Jordan Wilson was pitching; Brett Adams was behind the plate. Midlakes made two errors in the top of the first, allowing a run to score - not the way to start a game.
Midlakes scored in the bottom of the inning when Jesse DeBoover, who had singled, was plated by Neil Scheible. Jordan struggled, giving up 12 hits and hitting two batters, but 5 of PY's 10 run final score came off the bat of one player who hit back to back home runs. Randy Kuhlman hit a 3RBI homer for us in the 6th, and our best inning for defense came in the top of the7th when only 3 batters came up, and none of them hit it out of the infield. Neil picked up another RBI in our half of the 7th, but it was too little, too late. The final score was 10-6, putting a damper on our celebration of the careers of Randy Kuhlman, Craig Falkey, Mark DeCook, Zach Maslyn, Jordan Wilson, Torey Pieters and Jesse DeBoover.
The jv team defeated Pal-Mac 13-3 last Wednesday in their final home game. Kyle Consolie pitched 5 effective innings for the W. He got a lot of offensive support: Josh DeBoover, Tyler Turner, Colin Hotchkiss, Kyle Tillman, and Justin Buttaccio each had 2 hits; Turner and Jake Clyde hit triples; Drew Griffee had 3RBIs. This team was due to play last Friday night in Penn Yan. Our varsity softball team played their final home game and held their "Senior Night" last Friday night against Penn Yan. It was too cold for me to even think about going.
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