AUBURN — Chantel Ouellette did it all for Edward Little in a KVAC softball doubleheader Wednesday against Cony, including hitting the game-winning sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth inning of the second game to secure a sweep for the Red Eddies.
“I was just looking to get it to the green and get one run in,” said Ouellette, who drove in Caroline Hammond for the 7-6 victory.
In the first game, won 8-2 by the Eddies, Ouellette was strong on the mound and Jordan Cummings paced the Edward Little offense from the leadoff spot.
With the Red Eddies playing as the road team on their home field in the opener, Cummings opened the game with a double and scored on an error on Hammond’s sacrifice bunt.
Hammond also scored on an error to put the Red Eddies up 2-0. Cummings made it 4-0 in the second with a two-run single.
Ouellette showed her form early, picking up the first two of her 11 strikeouts in the first inning. She got out of a jam in the second with a strikeout and a fly out.
She struck out the side in the fourth, but not before the Rams scored a pair of unearned runs to cut the deficit in half. Tanley Tibbetts led off with a double, and two batters later Alexis Couverette reached on an error. After another strikeout, Alexis Everett singled to drive in Tibbetts and an error on the play also brought home Couverette.
A strikeout stranded Everett at third. Ouellette also used third-out strikeouts to get out of a second-and-third jam in the fifth and a runner-at-second threat in the sixth.
“It was tough to get any good, solid hits off her,” Cony coach Angela McKenna said.
Rams pitcher Gaby McGuire settled down after the second. She stranded a hit batter in the third and Madison Emmert after a single in the fifth, and had clean frames in the fourth and the sixth.
But the Red Eddies struck for four more runs in the seventh. Cummings singled in a run, Emmert doubled in Cummings, and two more runs scored on an Anna LeBlanc fielder’s choice and a wild pitch.
McGuire was tagged for nine hits, but didn’t walk a better and struck out four.
Ouellette worked around a two-out walk in the seventh, which was her lone frame without a strikeout. She only walked two and scattered five hits.
In game two, the Rams scored six runs in the fourth to go ahead 6-2.
Mallory Turgeon led off with a home run and the Rams later had five straight singles. An error scored the final run, three batters after Ouellette relieved Hannah Smith.
“We put it in a lot of our girls that didn’t play in the first game, and they just seemed to get things fired up,” McKenna said.
Haylee Cyr started the game for Cony and lasted four innings before McGuire took over again.
LeBlanc’s two-out, two-run double for Edward Little in the bottom of the seventh tied the game 6-6.
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