by Brent Hovey
Reporter
Aurora -- Disappointing losses, a win over a neighboring rival and cancellations were last week's developments for the Aurora softball team.
Coming into last week, the Lady Greenmen (8-8 overall heading into this week) sat on top of the Chagrin Valley Conference Chagrin Division with a 3-1 record.
They had already beaten the two favorites to win the CVC -- Chagrin Falls twice and Kenston once.
Their next challenge was Perry, but after two games against the Pirates, Aurora fell out of first place with a 3-3 conference record.
Perry beat the Lady Greenmen 5-1 on April 29 and then 5-2 a day later.
Normally, errors have been the reason Aurora has lost close games. But not last week. The defense was solid, but the offense couldn't capitalize on golden opportunities.
In the second game, Aurora twice had the bases loaded, but couldn't score.
"We had only one error," said AHS head coach Jaclyn Spirtos. "They just hit the ball good and made some good plays. And we couldn't capitalize on two bases-loaded situations.
"We could've won both games, but we didn't make the plays when we needed to."
With the two losses to Perry, the Lady Greenmen had lost four in a row and dropped to under .500 on the season (7-8). But they got a confidence boost against Streetsboro on May 1.
Aurora won 4-3 thanks to the same thing that cost it in the losses to Perry -- timely hitting. The locals got 4 runs in the fifth inning thanks to two big two-out hits.
With Aubrey Boswell on third and Kelly Lackey on second, Dana Bartlett came to bat with two outs. She roped a ball into the gap in right center that turned into a 2-run triple.
BARTLETT'S hit tied the score at 2 after Streetsboro had scored twice in the third.
Hannah Yoe was hit by a pitch and stole second following Bartlett's hit. That brought Christene Buonpane to the plate.
She singled to left center to score Bartlett and Yoe. AHS took a 4-2 lead and held on for the 4-3 win.
"This was good for our confidence," said Spirtos. "Dana and Christene had real big hits for us. That's what we've needed all year."
As big as Buonpane was at bat, she was even better pitching. She came on in the fourth inning to give up 2 hits, although one was an RBI double in the fifth, but it turned out not to matter.
In the bottom of the seventh, Streetsboro threatened. A leadoff walk, one-out single and stolen base put the tying and winning runs in scoring position with one out.
Buonpane got a groundout for the second out and then struck out a batter for the final out of the game.
The win was Aurora's eighth on the year, surpassing last year's win total of 7 with two weeks yet to play.
Aurora was supposed to play seven games last week, but weather limited it to three.
A game against Kent Roosevelt was called off to play a rescheduled Perry game and rain canceled a May 2 game against Ravenna and doubleheader May 3 against Hathaway Brown.
On May 5 and 6 of this week, the team was to play a home-and-away series against West Geauga to try to get above .500 in the CVC. The only other scheduled game this week is May 8 at Berkshire.
E-mail:
bhovey@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3115