By Laura Amato
The Bayside softball team just kept swinging.
There was no other choice.
That didn’t make the choice any easier.
The Lady Commodores offense stalled in their regular season finale last Friday, dropping a 3-1 tilt at Madison High School in a PSAL cross-borough faceoff.
Bayside’s hitters struggled in the matchup, unable to find any kind of rhythm at the plate against Madison ace Isabella Gerone.
“If we had scored just one more run, it might have changed things,” Bayside coach Jeffrey Meltzer said. “Isabella is an amazing pitcher.”
It was the fifth game Gerone pitched in as many days and while her shoulder may need an extra bit of post-game ice, the senior still recorded a dominant performance in the circle, striking out 17. By the final pitch every batter in Bayside’s (10-5) lineup had struck out at least once.
This, however, is par for the course for Gerone.
The senior wrapped up the regular season with 193 strikeouts and her confidence in the circle has been the defining characteristic of Madison’s (15-1) season.
“My rise ball was really working and so was my drop curve,” Gerone said. “I was just trying to work hard and make sure I fought with all the at-bats.”
Bayside faced a handful of obstacles in the game in addition to Gerone’s accuracy in the circle.
The Lady Commodores were missing several key players, forced to play underclassmen in the field and the inexperience showed.
Madison jumped out to a three-run lead in the third inning, taking advantage of a pair of Bayside errors to seize control of the game.
“We played with three or four girls who don’t really play,” Meltzer said. “It’s a little frustrating because you can’t give a team like this, or any team, four outs. That’s our biggest drawback. We had one bad inning.”
Bayside was able to get on the board in the fourth as Daniela Perez connected on a single into left field to score Sophia Gundersen.
It was, however, not enough to shake Gerone, and the Lady Commodores weren’t able to get anything else against the Madison standout.
“She’s the best pitcher in the city,” Madison coach Thomas E. Mobila said. “She’s been doing this all her life. So she knows what it is to be in this kind of situation.”
The loss spoils Meltzer’s return to Madison, marking just the second time the former Lady Knights coach has lost on the field in Brooklyn. Meltzer coached at Madison in 2010 and 2011, leading the team to its first-ever PSAL title in his first year.
Still, Meltzer can’t be too disappointed in his team.
The Lady Commodores kept swinging and that’s all he could ask of them.
“Everyone in here got better this year and that’s all you can hope for over the course of the season,” Meltzer said. “I came back this year, I wasn’t supposed to do it this year, but it’s been really nice.”
