The Lady Oracles Softball team found its season come to a halt in a heartbreaking 10- inning nail biter late Saturday night at the 2A Regional in Greentown. They end the season with 26 wins against 5 losses, ranked fourth in Class 2A.

The Lady Oracles lose four seniors - Brittney Atwood, Leslie Kayser, Aspen Wallace and Morgan Lavy - but return a host of underclassmen. They look forward to next season already.

Regional Semi-Final

The first game of the Regional found the Lady Oracles facing defending state champion, Lewis Cass. Delphi and Cass had met in the first contest of the year with the Oracles winning 1-0. In this contest the Lady Oracles showed no sign of big game jitters as they jumped out to a five-run lead in the top half of the first inning. Carli Rouhier put the Oracles on the scoreboard with a two-run homer, driving in Chanler Norman. Caitlin Schock followed Rouhier with a triple. Danni Burge, Brittani Rhodes and Brittney Atwood all singled with only Atwood being stranded on second as the Oracles batted through the line up in the first. The Lady Kings came back to score 3 in the bottom of the first but that was as close as the score would ever be as the Oracles had 15 hits and scored a single run in both the second and fourth inning as well as two runs in both the sixth and seventh innings.

Whitney Arion was the leading batter for the game, scoring 4 runs on 4 singles, Norman had 3 RBIs and Rouhier, Schock and Atwood had 2 RBIs each. Schock was the winning pitcher, her eighth win of the season.

After the 3-run first inning for the Lady Kings, Schock spread out only 4 more hits in the final six innings. She was also helped with some slick defense in the fifth inning when, with bases loaded, Jordyn Bieghler snagged a hard hit fly ball then caught a Cass runner off base with a quick throw to first to end the inning. The final score was 11- 6, Delphi.

Regional Final

For the second year in a row the Lady Oracles faced the Argylls of Madison Grant High School in a regional game. This was the first trip to the Regional finals for both teams. Madison Grant had defeated South Adams 5-2 earlier in the afternoon.

Madison Grant is led by senior pitcher Sara Webster, one of ten seniors on the roster. Webster was able to keep the Oracle batters off balance, giving up only three hits through the first six innings. With one out in the top of the seventh inning Oracle pitcher Atwood reached first on a throwing error by the Argyll shortstop. The next batter, Rhodes was hit by a Webster pitch; Webster then loaded the bases by walking senior catcher L. Kayser. Wallace's single gave the Lady Oracles their first run of the game.

Wallace's hit was followed by a fly out. Sophomore first baseman Norman next drove a clutch hit down the third base line scoring Rhodes and Bieghler, who was running for Kayser. The score was now tied 3-3. With Wallace on third and Norman on second, Rouhier hit a shot to left center. The Argyll left fielder made a running, diving catch of the Rouhier ball to end the inning.

In the bottom of the seventh, with two outs, the Argylls were able to get runners into scoring position but Atwood was able to get the Argyll batter to pop up to end the threat and force extra innings. The Oracles got Burge to second in the eighth inning and Schock to second with a stand up double off the left field fence in the tenth inning, but neither could score.

In the bottom of the tenth inning with one out, back-toback singles found Argyll runners on second and third. The next batter, Sydnie Holland hit a sacrifice fly to left field. The runner on third was able to tag and score ending the game and a great season for the Lady Oracles.

The Lady Oracles were a young team this year; the coaching staff will not have to rebuild, they will just reload.