STRATFORD DOMINATES OPENING DAY - CLASH OF SPARTANS

The Stratford JV fans assembled at the Front Yard on a lovely late winter’s day for the team’s first regular season game, against the Cy Lakes Spartans. Although the game fell on Valentine’s Day, the Stratford clan showed no love for their namesakes.

Cy Lakes led off the game with gusto, in the form of a sharply hit ball to third base. But Emma Adisa handled it and snuffed out the threat to a stretching Ava Esparza. The inning ended without a hit or a run scored.

The Stratford half of the first revealed that Cy Lakes’ spears bore some winter rust, possibly from not having replicated Stratford’s cold-weather scrimmage gauntlet. Meanwhile Coach Salinas had her team’s edges sharp, and they took advantage. Esparza, Sophie Donnel, Darcy Broaddus, Keely Meeks, and Allie Richardson scored without the necessity of a hit amongst a flurry of walks, hit batters, and passed balls. The inning produced a couple of firsts, with Donnel scoring the season’s first run and Adisa recording the season’s first RBI, achieved by taking a pitch gamely off her front leg with the bases full to bring Richardson home. Caroline Chamberlain stood on deck plotting her attack when the fifth run came in to end the inning, frustrating her plan for annihilation (for now).

After a brief interlude in which Meeks (pitching) and Shayleigh Thomas (catching) collaborated to strike out the Cy Lakes side, the team in green returned to bat. Dulce Soto produced the season’s first hit by dragging a bunt neatly up the right side and out-racing the attempt at first. Broaddus and Esparza followed with line-drive hits, Esparza pausing mid-base to briefly engage the left fielder in a contest of wills before completing her trip to second. The inning amounted to another five runs for the home team, with Soto adding her name to the roster of run scorers.

The Cy Lakes' third inning began with their first and only hit - a single to left. What might have been back-to-back hits ended up instead as Stratford’s defensive play of the game, with Soto fielding a ball off the grass in right field and firing to Broaddus on the bag at second, forcing out the runner who was at first by way of a 9-6 fielder’s choice.

In the third inning, the Dairy Ashford denizens gorged themselves on five more runs like they were scarfing down heart-shaped chocolates. These were gifted largely by a series of walks, although Broaddus declined the charity and blasted her second hit of the game over the center fielder, driving in her second run. Mariah Estrada, Laura De La Rosa, Kyla Vazquez, Mia Hutchison, and Alyssa Aranzeta each crossed the plate to score their first runs.

After three innings, with the score 15-0 and without Stratford having recorded a single out, the umpires ended the game. Had the Gods of antiquity showed similar mercy for the Spartans, the Pelopennesian states might have been spared much bloodshed.

Cy Lakes was outmatched on this day, but they played with effort and class. Good luck to them this season.

Thus begins – and ends – the JV non-District season. The team begins District play on Tuesday, February 21 at home against Cy Fair. We shall report.