Cortland Standard .net

By TANEY BEAUMONT
Staff Writer
The Cortland High softball team is headed north next week, looking for some revenge.
Senior center fielder Ali Bustamante went 3-for-3 with a home run, RBI and three runs scored while sophomore Cady Walts threw a four-hit shutotut with nine strikeouts Friday as the seventh-seeded Purple Tigers beat No. 10 Indian River 4-0 on Meldrim Field in a Section 3 Class A first-round contest.
CHS will visit No. 2 Jamesville-DeWitt (13-7) in the quarterfinals in a game tentatively set for Tuesday at 5 p.m.
The host Red Rams beat Cortland — which at the time only had 10 players available — 4-1 on April 18 in an OHSL Freedom Division contest. Friday’s win was the Purple Tigers’ ninth in their last 10 games with a full complement of players. J-D also ousted CHS from last year’s A sectionals by the same 4-1 score after Cortland had walloped visiting Indian River 15-4 in the first round.
“Ali has been outstanding the second half of the season,” CHS coach Zac Darrow said of Bustamante, his team now 12-5 overall after the victory in front of a large and vocal home crowd. “She put in a lot of work on hitting and has played great in center field for us all season. No one has put a ball over her head yet. Cady had a great game for us today, too.
“I’d have liked to see us hit a little bit better, but we’ll take what we can get. We were aggressive on the basepaths; we talked about that, how when we get runners on we have to move them along and score if we can.”
Cortland managed just six hits off Warriors junior pitcher Kammikia Barnes, who also had nine strikeouts and walked one batter. Walts issued three walks.
“They brought Barnes in to pitch when last year’s game got out of hand,” Darrow said. “She has impressive speed and a good mix of pitches. She was able to keep us off-balance. She kept it around the zone and they made the plays they needed to.”
“This was Kammikia’s best pitching performance of the year,” Indian River coach Tim Callahan said after his team had finished the season at 6-10. She only gave up six hits, but they were able to capitalize on little things and move runners along.”
Barnes’s performance in turn helped Walts, who noted that “I always want to do better than the other pitcher. She threw well and struck me out twice, so I had a lot of motivation. Once we have the lead there’s less pressure and I’m not as nervous.”
Bustamante was the top offensive player in the battle between the two outstanding pitchers. “I just hit singles (the first two at-bats) and the team did the rest,” she said. “The pitch I hit for the home run was a fast ball. I’m good with fast pitches and not as good with slow ones; I was lucky today because I like it fast.”
Bustamante singled up the middle with one out in the second for the hosts’ first hit, stole second, went to third on a groundout and scored the game’s first run on a passed ball.
Walts blooped a single to right in the third, then stole second and third. After eighth-grade catcher Ashley Shortsleeve walked, a fielder’s choice ended the threat and the inning.
Indian River senior first baseman India Leddy smashed a one-out triple deep to left in the top of the fourth but was stranded by a pair of infield flyouts. Cortland then came back with a run in the bottom of the same inning to make it 2-0. After sophomore third baseman Kacie Hubbard’s scorching liner to right was snagged by Warrior sophomore right fielder Taylor Ashley to get things started, Bustamante slashed an infield single, went to second on a wild pitch, stole third one out later and scored on a single to left by junior designated player Ali DeGraff.
A pair of two-out walks and an infield single by junior shortstop Kaia Berinobis allowed the visitors to load the bases with two outs in the fifth before Walts got a flyout to escape trouble.
Junior left fielder Hannah Whelan’s but single started off the CHS fifth, and she went around to third on a pair of wild pitches before Walts struck out, the ball getting by junior catcher Katelynn Stump. Her subsequent throw to third allowed Whelan to score.
Leddy singled to lead off the Warrior sixth but junior pinch-runner Julisa Muriel was stranded as Walts retired the next three batters. Bustamante closed out the scoring in the bottom of that inning with her second homer of the season. She sent the ball deep over the head of Indian River senior center fielder Kasey Fuller and made it around the bases before the ball got back to the infield.
Walts then closed out the game by striking out of the side in the top of the seventh.
Leddy went 2-for-2 with the triple for the visitors.
Asked about playing Jamesville-DeWitt again, Darrow said that “Since we’ve had a full team we feel we can play with anyone. There’s a distinct difference between this team and the ones that lost to J-D in last year’s sectionals and earlier this season.”
“We have a fan bus coming to the game,” Bustamante said. “We’re really excited and look forward to playing them.”
Walts got right to the point when asked her thoughts on the upcoming contest with J-D, saying with a look of determination that “I want to beat them really bad.”