Long Beach tops East Meadow

Long Beach shortstop Katie Frisch shrugged at the hooting crowd and turned up her palms in bemusement as she headed toward second base, easing from a sprint into a proper home run trot.

Frisch’s mile-high popup leading off the fifth inning seemed to stubbornly keep on sailing and cleared the top of the left field fence by inches – surprising many, including Frisch. The style of the freshman’s second homer of the year – off East Meadow starter Kelsey Leonard – fit a motif last Friday afternoon, and put the Long Beach softball team ahead by two on the way to handing host East Meadow its first defeat of the season, 7-2, in a Conference AA-I contest.

Long Beach coach Carmine Verde – whose team improved to 5-4 in AA-I, 7-5 overall – saw the game as a test of his club’s determination and an indicator of its potential. “The girls worked for this, to keep at it the whole game, to not let up,” Verde said. “We wanted to play like we had something to prove. The girls know they can beat East Meadow. That’s an amazing accomplishment.”

Lady Marines starter Tonianne Larson compiled eleven strikeouts – beginning with the first six batters she faced and ending with the final three.  The senior right-hander allowed five hits, one walk and one earned run over seven innings for the win.

“Each game we try to get better,” said Larson, who went 3-for-4 with an RBI and scored two runs. “We worked at being able to push through all seven innings and not backing down, or not letting one little thing mess up the whole team.”

Larson limited Lady Jets slugger Christina Loeffler to a pair of singles, and gave up two hits to shortstop Jenna Laird, who also scored and drove in a run.  Outfielder Sam Reyes singled and batted in East Meadow’s other run.

“Tonianne pitched a great game. She changed speed and had a lot of movement, and fooled us a little bit,” said East Meadow coach Stew Fritz, whose team remains in first place heading into the playoffs at 9-1 in AA-I, 12-1 overall.

“Sometimes a loss before we start the real stretch run is a good thing,” Fritz added, grinning.  “Maybe it’ll refocus us.”

Larson singled home outfielder Colleen Mannle pushing Long Beach out front 3-0 in third. Hits by Laird, Loeffler and Reyes, in that order, produced two runs in the fourth inning that brought East Meadow within 3-2. But after that the Lady Jets would send the minimum number of batters to face Larson, who tossed three workmanlike one-two-three innings closing out the game.

With two out and two on in the top of the seventh, Long Beach designated hitter Maiya Abramson clouted Leonard’s first offering over the fence in left field.  The three-run homer plated Larson and sophomore outfielder Megan Korotz, who also scored in the second.

“This was good for us,” Verde said.  “With playoffs coming we got to work on things against a tremendous team.”