Higgins KAOS goes one-up
in softball tourney final
JERRY WOLKOWITZ Higgins KAOS first baseman Donna Smith stretches for a throw during a game against Freeman Funeral Home/Matty’s Auto Body Gravediggers last Wednesday.
A sense of inevitability surrounded the Freeman Funeral Homes/Matty’s Auto Body Gravediggers and Higgins KAOS all season in the Freehold Borough Women’s Softball League.
The two teams finished 1-2 in the regular season. The Gravediggers were unbeaten with an 11-0-1 mark and the only blemish was their tie with Higgins. Meanwhile, Higgins went 8-3-1, but more importantly they were the defending champions. There seemed no doubt that the two frontrunners were headed for a showdown for the championship, and they did not disappoint, cruising through their opening round series without a loss.
Form, however, ended there. Round one of the best-of-three FBWSL championship series was played last Wednesday, and it was Higgins, striking for six runs in the first inning, which stunned the previously unbeaten Gravediggers, 7-2, to go up 1-0 in the series. Higgins sent a quick message to the Gravediggers that this is the second season and that it is Higgins KAOS who are the champions.
Game two will be tonight at Freehold Borough High School with the Gravediggers facing elimination.
Both the Gravediggers and Higgins swept their best-of-three semifinal series.
The Gravediggers beat the fourth-place Brew Crew (7-5) 9-2 and 10-4.
In the first game, the Gravediggers took full advantage of seven first-inning walks to score six runs. The game then settled into a defensive game with shortstops Kathy Locke of the Gravediggers and Peg Lackner of the Brew Crew putting on superb defensive displays with their gloves.
Leslie Taylor and Chris Battaglia were the only Gravediggers with extra base hits while Patti Firestine, Joyce Fallon and Lackner each had two hits for the Brew Crew.
Up by one game in the series, the Gravediggers looked to polish off the Brew Crewers in the second game. The Crew jumped out on top, thanks to a lead-off triple by Joyce Fallon in the bottom of the first. She scored on Chris Cippully’s sacrifice fly.
After the Gravediggers tied the game at 1-1 in the second, the Brew Crew jumped out in front again on Lackner’s two-run home run. That would prove to be the Crewers’ final salvo as the Gravediggers scored four runs in the fifth to take the lead and two more in the sixth and seventh to make the final tally 10-4.
Michelle Schenck, Lynn Corvasce and Joy Guzik delivered run-scoring hits in the four-run fifth.
Defending champion Higgins kept pace with the Gravediggers, turning back third place Carroll’s Cuts (7-5) in two games, 14-4 and 7-4.
Higgins KAOS had everything going for them in game one, rolling up 14 runs. Carroll’s Cuts, however, would hang tough in the second game as pitcher Cathy Preston kept Higgins’ big bats in check, limiting them to just four extra base hits. Denise Shea and Joanne Lykes contributed with outstanding defense.
But four runs wasn’t going to be enough. Darlene Thompson-Ecks went 4-4 with an extra base hit. Donna Smith had a pair of doubles in three trips to the plate, and pitcher Lorraine Yoncak helped her own cause with a double in the 7-4 clincher.
The final regular season standings in the FBWSL were: 1. Gravediggers, 11-0-1; 2. Higgins KAOS, 8-3-1; 3. Carroll’s Cuts, 7-5; 4. Brew Crew, 7-5; 5. Ebony, 6-6; 6. Ball Busters, 2-10; and 7. Freehold Self Storage, 0-12.

