STORRS – For over three hours, Cheshire sophomore pitcher Jenica Matos and Fairfield Ludlowe senior pitcher Alex Lewey went head to head at Burrill Family Field at UConn Saturday afternoon.
Fairfield Ludlowe was the defending Class LL champion. Cheshire was the top seed. Neither team had given up a run in the state tournament. Cheshire had lost once during the season.
It went 10 innings, inning after inning of defensive plays by both teams that kept the game scoreless. Seventh-seeded Fairfield Ludlowe finally broke through and scored three runs in the top of the 10th; Cheshire scored two in the bottom and that was the game, a 3-2 win by the defending champion Falcons.
Pop up ends the game, Fairfield Ludlowe wins the Class LL title 3-2 in 10 pic.twitter.com/DzA7E63BFR
— Lori Riley (@lrileysports) June 8, 2024
Matos struck out 16 and allowed three hits and walked seven for Cheshire (25-2). Lewey had 10 strikeouts for Fairfield Ludlowe (23-5) and gave up five hits.
“They’re an awesome team but we battled,” Matos said. “We really battled that last inning but fell short.”
Cheshire coach Kristine Drust had high praise for her pitcher.
“She’s a horse out there,” Drust said. “She kept us in the game. We should have won for her. All she can think about is coming back and saying that we’re going to be better next year.
“That’s what she said, ‘Sorry, Coach, we’re going to be better next year.’ She put us in a position to win on the biggest stage against a really good team. She left it all out there.”
Alexa Mills reached base on a walk to open the 10th inning and scored on a wild pitch to give Fairfield Ludlowe a 1-0 lead. Lauren Foley hit a ball to left field and reached second on an error and two more runs scored.
Fairfield Ludlowe gets two more runs, two outs top 10, leads 3-0 pic.twitter.com/JjkZHtILQn
— Lori Riley (@lrileysports) June 8, 2024
Cheshire rallied in the bottom of the 10th when Molly Fleming scored on a double by Jordan McCue. McCue scored on a sacrifice fly by Karla Carangelo to cut Fairfield Ludlowe’s lead to one, 3-2.
But Erin Hersh popped up for the final out and that was it for Cheshire, which had only lost to five-time Class L defending champion Masuk this season.
“It was definitely hard, but we knew coming in Ludlowe was a good team to play,” McCue said. “We had a good fight til the end.
“We were feeling the momentum. We thought we were going to come back.”
There were some defensive gems by both teams throughout the game. In the seventh inning, second baseman Lauren Foley leapt up to make a catch and came down on the second base bag, doubling up the baserunner and ending the inning with a double play. Right fielder Izzy Mulhall made a great catch of a Tai Byrd fly ball in the eighth inning. Catcher Allie Tournas, who was named the MVP, picked off a baserunner on third in the fifth inning. She also made a diving catch of a bunt pop up in the seventh inning.
Great catch 2 outs pic.twitter.com/UYk4vSy3gg
— Lori Riley (@lrileysports) June 8, 2024
“Ludlowe had stellar defense – stellar, stellar defense – from the diving catch of the bunt, to the one out in the outfield – their defense came through for them today,” Drust said.
