Leading off today: Allison Swartz drew a tie-breaking, bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the sixth inning to lift
Marlboro over Ellenville 5-4 for the Section 9 Class B softball championship Sunday.
"My team needed a run," Swartz told The Times Herald-Record. "It wasn't about me. It was just about getting the run, and if that means I take a walk, I take a walk."
Marlboro stranded eight runners, seven in scoring position, when Swartz drew the walk for the go-ahead run.
Marlboro earned its 14th section title since 1981 and fourth in a row. The Dukes play Section 1 champion Pawling on Thursday to open action in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association tournament.
More softball: New Paltz pounded out 17 hits -- all singles -- and rolled past Goshen 16-5 for the Section 9 Class A championship, the school's first title in the sport.
"My coach had my other pitcher warming up and I was like, 'No, I want to finish this,'" winning pitcher Bridget Bennett said after surrendering eight hits and striking out 13 batters. "I want to finish it because ever since I was a freshman I just wanted something on the softball banner in our gym because there is nothing there. That was my goal, and this is it!"
Catcher Karly Giancola was 4-for-5 with three runs batted in, and eight starters banged out at least one hit apiece.
Baseball: Freshman shortstop Fritz Genther followed a walk, a hit batsman and a wild pitch with a two-run single in the top of the fifth as Kingston edged Monroe-Woodbury 2-1 for the Section 9 Class AA championship.
"I was supposed to bunt but they got to second and third and I was looking for him to hang a fastball and he gave me one," Genther said. "I hung back on it and drove it."
Kingston junior Avery Short allowed four hits, struck out six and walked two over seven innings. The Tigers defense turned two double plays and catcher Tanner Davis picked off a runner at first base in support of the effort.
Kingston had last won the title in 2012, when it went on to a NYSPHSAA crown. The Tigers host Section 4 champ Corning in the first round of the state playoffs Thursday.
M-W grad drowns in Mass.: Monroe-Woodbury and SUNY Cortland graduate Jack Jakubek was remembered on Sunday as a star swimmer a day after the 22-year-old drowned during lifeguard tryouts at Pilgrim Lake beach in Cape Cod, Mass., on Saturday morning.
According to Orleans, Mass., fire department officials, Jakubek slipped beneath the surface at 8:49 a.m. and was found unconscious about a half hour later, 150 to 200 yards from shore. He was declared dead after being brought by ambulance to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.
