After 26 hits and 18 runs between Whitehall and Freedom’s softball teams, the Zephyrs won the battle of the bats, 11-7, over the Patriots on April 19 at Whitehall to remain the only undefeated team in conference play.

“Freedom is almost a mirror image of us,” said Whitehall coach Jeff Vivian. “They can hit the ball. They’re a bit younger. We were interested to see how they were going to respond to a high-pressure game, but we knew they were gonna come ready, and (Freedom coach) Michele (Laubach) was gonna have them prepared. We knew we had to flex our muscle at the plate and then play solid behind them.”

It was the Pates who struck first, putting up two runs in the first inning on catcher Brianna Cole’s RBI single that scored Maia D’Amico and on Daniela Guzzo’s groundout that scored Madison Glick.

The Zephyrs opened the floodgates in the bottom of the second inning with nine runs, starting with Bella Muth’s RBI single.

Kassy Acquino’s RBI tied the game, and Muth scored on a fielder’s choice to give the Zephs a 3-2 lead.

Then, with two outs, Whitehall put up six more runs on doubles by Emma Bonshak and Jess Spanitz, base hits by Kate Yadush and Aubrey Steiner, a Freedom error, and another RBI by Acquino.

“I just think we had no defense behind [pitcher Alexis Acevedo],” said Coach Laubach. “She did her job, she kept the ball low, and we just, defensively, made some errors and fell apart there a little bit, and it was nothing that she did. We had mental errors of the ball to the outfield, and we’re throwing home and giving them extra bases which led to extra runs on the next hit.”

The Zephyrs had been determined to take over the lead as soon as possible.

“It was high intensity, and it was 2-0, so we really wanted to get out there right away,” said Steiner. “We wanted to keep putting on the runs so they wouldn’t be able to catch up to us. They got close.”

Freedom outfielder Brooke Rummel relieved Acevedo with two outs in the second.

In the fourth inning, Acevedo’s sacrifice fly to right scored Siara Gonzalez, but the Zephyrs saved a run when Nya Brown fielded Rummel’s double to right field with a throw to Bonshak at second base, whose relay to Steiner at home plate threw out Julia Heineman.

“I was hearing, “home,” and I knew they were probably going to send her, so I decided to throw it and see how close it was going to get,” said Bonshak.

Four runs for Freedom scattered over three innings brought the Pates within two, 9-7.

“We kind of took our foot off the gas a little bit,” Coach Vivian said. “If we start putting the game away a little bit better, we’ll be in a lot better position.”

Nonetheless, the Zephyrs added two runs in the sixth inning after a leadoff single by Yadush followed by Sienna Meli’s triple to right center and another RBI base hit from Acquino, who also relieved Haley Bartosh in the circle in the top of the sixth.

“You’ve gotta give credit to both pitchers, and the umpire was keeping them on the plate today, and same for Freedom,” said Vivian.

It was Freedom’s second conference loss, having fallen also to Easton.

“We’re an even-keel team, so I did feel at points today where we come in, and we’re ready for the game, and then I feel like after that, we went down in our intensity. We didn’t keep the same intensity through seven innings that we need to have to win big games like this,” Laubach said. “I’m proud of them for the fight that we put up there, but we expect, against a good hitting team like this, that we have to put up more runs, but the defensive side today just hurt us.”