“We’re 13-0! Yeah!”
Cheers erupted from the cluster of Cardozo softball players camped out next to the John Bowne softball field, as head coach Lawrence Alberts reminded his team what a watershed the 2009 season has been.
They had just emerged from a 15-1 thrashing of Bowne, which was not so different from most of the Judges’ other scoreboard-stretching feats this season: 15-1 over Van Buren, 23-0 over Adams, 17-0 over Franklin K. Lane Campus. Cardozo will enter the playoffs on May 30 as one of the city’s biggest forces.
“We’re riding the wave, and we’re really enjoying every bit of it,” Alberts told The Courier.
The Judges’ post-game celebration wasn’t just about maintaining an undefeated record. It was about standing atop the PSAL Queens ‘A-I’ division after years of falling short to Bayside, whose Nicole Marra pitched and hit her way directly through the borough’s competition. With Marra having finally moved on, and with Cardozo’s young talent only getting better, 2009 was the junior-heavy team’s first real chance to nudge its way to the top.
The Judges did so with a 3-2 squeaker versus Bayside on April 29, then confirmed the result with the second of two wins over darkhorse rival Francis Lewis.
Against Bowne on May 8, however, they were back to business. A triple by senior second baseman Jaclyn Liebowitz, a two-run double by junior third baseman Gina Mingione, and another two-run double by junior outfielder Jennifer McCormick plated five runs in the first inning. The offense was too much for opposing pitcher Michelle DeLeon to handle, and an occasionally flustered Bowne defense – which took charge of a possible fourth-inning rundown entirely thanks to head coach Bruce Bitterman’s commands – did not help.
Cardozo, meanwhile, showed off its talent. Junior pitcher Amanda Annicaro, who threw strikes up the middle and threw them hard, conceded two hits, one walk, and one unearned run over five mercy-shortened innings. Junior shortstop Sandy Tomasik, displaying perhaps the team’s greatest strength, shined on defense, stopping numerous hits with an outstretched, backhanded glove as she ranged to her right.
“I smile when she does that,” Alberts said. “I wish I could say I taught her that.”
Cardozo also stringed together a game-long barrage of doubles. The Judges scored two in the second, one in the third, and seven in the fourth – enough to claim an early win when Annicaro kept Bowne scoreless in the fifth.
Whether Cardozo’s other strength – an arguably unrivaled collection of chants from the dugout – has any influence on the team’s success is debatable at best. But responding to a foul ball with “You got a piece of it, but we want all of it!” deserves some kind of credit, too.
