Bayport-Blue Point softball falls in Class A state semifinals
Renee McGowan #17 of Bayport-Blue Point connects for a RBI double during the bottom of the fifth inning of the NYSPHSAA softball Class A state semifinals against Maine-Endwell at Moriches Athletic Complex on Friday, June 9, 2023. Credit: James Escher
The Bayport-Blue Point softball team’s Cinderella story didn’t quite end the way it would have liked.
The Phantoms fell, 13-2, to Maine-Endwell (Section IV) in the Class A state semifinals at the Moriches Athletic Complex on Friday morning.
Bayport grabbed a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning when Erin McMahon drove in Linda Edwards on a single up the middle. But Maine-Endwell’s bats came alive and answered with four runs in the second.
Entering the bottom of the fifth, the Phantoms trailed 11-1.
Maine-Endwell will face Troy (Section II) in the final on Saturday.
“Our motto that took us through the playoffs was, ‘Execute your bunts, earn your swings later in the game,’ ” Bayport coach Nicholle Marchetta said. “We got ourselves into a hole today where the bunt game wasn’t going to help us.”
Bayport entered the Suffolk Class A playoffs as the eighth seed and came out with its first county title since 2005. In a 12-inning thriller against MacArthur last Friday, the Phantoms (21-5) clinched their first Long Island title since 1991.
“When they were in fifth grade, they won the District 35 Little League tournament,” Marchetta said. “We have their plaque from that and a picture of all of them as fifth-graders. When you look at that and our Long Island championship photo, it’s the same group of girls.”
McMahon finished 2-for-3 with an RBI and Edwards went 3-for-4 and scored two runs. Renee McGowan went 2-for-3 and drove in Edwards on an RBI double to leftfield in the fifth.
“Although this was our year, we still have so much more to go through with the younger girls,” said McGowan a junior.
McMahon is one of four seniors graduating, along with Nikki Echevarria, Kate McKillop and Erin Wuestmann.
“They taught me everything I know about softball and they taught me how to be a person,” McGowan said. “We learned so much from them, but we’re not gonna be the same without them.”
“They’re the nicest girls you’ll ever meet and they’re all on the same team,” Marchetta said. “Each loss we had this season actually brought them closer together. This really is a special group of girls.”
