PORTVILLE — The Portville softball team couldn’t match Ellicottville in a matchup of the CCAA West 4 teams, losing 11-3 on Wednesday in Portville.
Ellicottville scored three in the first inning and four in the second to go ahead 7-0 and set the tone. Eagle starting pitcher Katie Lafferty had a strong performance, pitching a complete game with 12 strikeouts, five hits and three runs allowed.
Lafferty also went 3-4 at the plate with two RBIs, teammate Courtney Marsh was 3-3 with three RBI’s.
“Their top of the order hits the ball really hard,” Torrey said “We were hoping to come in and just give them a good fight, but unfortunately it is something we weren’t able to come back from.”
Portville scored all three of their runs in the sixth inning, with Madison Ford’s two-RBI double being the highlight for the Panthers. Ella Warters started in the circle for Portville, pitching five innings with seven strikeouts.
“Warters is fighting a little bit of an injury,” Torrey said. “She walked in a few runs early on. Just got to put less runners on base.”
Three singles, two walks and a hit batter in the first inning led to three Eagle runs, then Ellicottville struck again in the second inning.
A Lafferty two-RBI double put the Eagles up 5-0. Marsh then followed her with an RBI single, and another run came in on a fielder’s choice to make it 7-0.
“We were pretty happy to get up early on them,” Ellicottville coach Matt Finn said. “We got a couple early runs to feel more comfortable as we progressed forward. We have been up and down lately to say the least, this was a big one for us.”
The scoring came to a halt in the third when Warters struck out the bottom of the Eagle order.
Portville saw their first hit come in the third inning too with an infield single, but just like most of the game they couldn’t do anything else to bring the run in.
Ellicottville got going again in the fourth with the top of the order back up. Marsh and Liz Ball each hit RBI singles to make the lead to 9-0. Lafferty then struck out the Panther side in the bottom half.
Riley Whitmer hit a two-run home run in the sixth to bring the Eagle lead to 11-0. But Portville finally got something to cheer about in the bottom half, scoring three runs to make the score look a little nicer at 11-3.
Ford finished 2-3 with two-RBIs, Isabella Morales got the other RBI for the Panthers.
“I truly believe that there is talent enough to be successful in that dugout,” Torrey said. “It is just a matter of when they start to believe it.”
Portville (3-4, 2-3) is sitting in fourth in the league while Ellicottville (4-3, 3-1) is just a half game behind first place Falconer, who the Eagles just lost to on Monday.
“I think we are getting there,” Finn said. “One game at a time, old cliche, one game at a time. I think our league is super tough, just hopefully improve every day.”
