RICHFORD – The Craftsbury Academy (CA) softball team made big improvements last week but lacked timely hitting in falling to Richford and Burlington-Winooski for their third straight loss to start the season.
Richford’s Kyrielle Deuso refused to make an out last Thursday, going a perfect 5-5, belting three home runs, and driving in an eye popping 12 runs in leading her team to a 26-8 home win over the Lady Chargers.
Kayliese McCray drove in three runs with a double and a triple, as the Lady Rockets busted the game open with a 13 run third inning.
Mikayla and Adi Chagnon combined for seven more hits and Sophia Derby struck out four to earn the win.
Hazen Union’s Sarah Collier went 2-4 with a double and Peoples Academy’s Emily Hoffman added two more hits, including a double for CA. Hoffman took the loss in the circle in her first varsity start.
“Emily did an amazing job and showed a lot of composure in her first start. Having her in the circle allows us to put Savannah Boyce’s versatility in center field and she earned the game ball with some amazing catches out there. Richford is definitely a different team this year with a lot of athletes up and down their roster, but we really just had one bad inning and couldn’t stop their rally. We’re still getting the kinks out early on in the season with some silly errors in the field, and we need to get the bats going consistently, but we are still up and playing as a team,” said head coach Ashley Gravel.
Khloe Farnham struck out seven to earn the win and Taylor Reed stamped out a Lady Charger comeback with two innings of relief to earn the save as Burlington-Winooski outlasted CA at home over the weekend 11-6. Farnham helped her own cause with a pair of doubles and Albina Rai added an RBI double to help the Lady Spartans capture their first win of the season.
Sadie Skorstad powered CA’s offense with a 2-3 performance and Savannah Boyce added a double in the loss.
“Emily showed some great improvement in her second start, and we could’ve won that game with some timely hitting in the first inning. I took some calculated risks that didn’t pan out and that loss is on me as a coach. We will continue to improve as a team, and we look forward to our rematch with them at our home field. Overall, we played well, and we are only going to get better as a team with more game experience under our belts,” said Gravel.
The Lady Chargers hosted CCSU on Tuesday and are scheduled to travel to Oxbow on Thursday.
