By PAUL GOTHAM
BLOOMFIELD, N.Y. — Ashlyn Wright surrendered back-to-back, one-out hits in the first inning but not much more after that while Calla McCombs sparked a big sixth inning.
And the No. 2 Bloomfield Bombers team advanced to their second straight Section V Class C1 title game with an 8-0 victory over No. 3 Williamson, Thursday afternoon.
“It’s what I expected from this game,” Bloomfield head coach Mark Jacobs said. “I knew Williamson was very good.”
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Deadlocked in a scoreless tie through five innings, Bloomfield exploded for all eight of its runs with two outs in the sixth.
“It was an impressive inning,” Jacobs added. “The girls didn’t quit. To me it was a confidence builder too. To go out and know that we don’t have to lead wire-to-wire. We can rally with big hits.”
McCombs led the frame with a base hit to left center. The hit was just the third up to that point off Williamson starter Olivia Flynn.
Two outs later, Wright singled through the left side of the infield. She would end up being the first eight straight Bombers to reach base in the decisive inning.
“It was a case of ‘ladies, you know what you’re doing. Go do it,’ ” Jacobs remarked.
Sofie Kachmaryk’s bloop single to right center brought home McCombs and Wright to start the scoring. Brynn Westlake made it 3-0 with an RBI base hit to center field. Celia Falsone and Ava Hawkins reached on back-to-back infield singles to bring in a run apiece. McCombs walked in her second trip to the plate in the inning and scored from first on Abby O’Brien’s bases-clearing single.
McCombs, an eighth-grader, finished 2-for-3 in the game with a walk and two runs scored.
“Her instincts on the basepaths are unbelievable,” Jacobs said of his starting catcher. “You don’t even really need to coach her. She knows what to do. She’s a gamechanger behind the plate as well. People don’t try to steal on us because she throws people out.
Abby O’Brien drops a two-run single into right. Calla McCombs scores from first on the play. Heading to the seventh: @goBCSbombers 8 Williamson 0 pic.twitter.com/T50NnuHpZs
— Paul Gotham (@PickinSplinters) May 26, 2022
“She’s our leadoff hitter and going into today she leads the team in RBI. I can’t enough about what she does. She’s a fabulous player. I’m happy to have her around for a few years.”
Wright, a ninth-grader, struck out 12 and allowed three hits and one walk for the win.
“Any time you got Ashlyn on the mound, you got a chance,” Jacobs said. “She believes in herself. She believes in what she can do, and she believes in her teammates.”
She retired 14 straight until giving up a two-out to her counterpart, Olivia Flynn. The right-hander ended the inning with a strike out and then fanned the side in the seventh.
“She just gets stronger as the game goes on,” Jacobs said. “If you’re going to get Ashlyn, you better get her early. If you don’t get her early, you’re not getting her.”
The shutout was the ninth this season and third in the past five games for the Bombers.
“We spent a lot of time yesterday on defense,” Jacobs said. “We were preaching defense, preaching defense. I think it showed. They were hitting the ball a lot better than we were earlier in the game. The girls made all the plays and kept us in it, so we could pull it out late.”
Bloomfield will face top-seeded Avon in the finals. The Braves defeated Bloomfield in last year’s title game, 10-0.
“I think we surprised ourselves last year as young as we were and making it as far as we did,” Jacobs said. “We knew it would be hard this year, but we knew we had the talent to do it.”
Flynn had two of Williamson’s three hits. The senior also struck out 10.
An 11 am first pitch is scheduled Saturday at Honeoye Falls-Lima.
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