Kenmore West sweep East on the diamond

KENMORE - It was a double win for the Blue Devils.

Kenmore West got the better of Kenmore East two times on the diamonds this past week as the Lady Blue Devils scored a tough 7-3 win over the Lady Bulldogs during a chilly, rainy Thursday.

Ken-West cruised to 17-2 victory over the Bulldogs at Parker Field two days later.

Shelby Donhauser set the tone for the Blue Devils as she had two hits (single, triple) and struck out 10 as the Blue Devils outlasted a tough Ken-East team.

The Blue Devils took advantage of some early errors and defensive flubs the Bulldogs made to jump to a 2-0 lead in the first inning.

Charlotte Miller extended the West lead when she hit a booming home run to left

field that made the score 6-0.

Though West coach Matt Chimera was happy to see his team take the early lead his greater concern was the fact his squad didn’t cash in on more scoring chances.

“We’re hitting the ball,” he said, “at times when we have a chance to put teams away we’re just not doing that.”

Pointing out missed chances in their loss to Niagara-Wheatfield the day before they played Ken-East, Chimera said they have to not only make good choices while on the base paths but also come through with timely hits.

Gabe Boldinski put Ken-East on the board when she drilled a solo home run to deep left field, almost in the exact same spot Miller’s bomb landed.

Boldinski, who scored twice, reach base in all four of her at-bats. In addition to her homer, Boldinski singled, walked and was hit by a pitch.

In baseball: Winning pitcher Dan Faso gave up just one hit in his 4.1 inning of work. Faso also went 2-for-3 and scored three times.

The Blue Devils offense was also paced by Tyler Novo (3-for-5, three runs), Tommy Ryan (2-for-4, two doubles, RBI), Ricky Deiboldt (3-for-5, two runs) and Rob Seiler (four RBIs, two sacs, single).

While taking round one of the diamond wars from their district neighbors was huge, Haynes said the bigger news for his squad was that slowly but surely they are finding consistency and playing like

the team they know they are capable of being.

A big part of pointing the ship in the right direction was the Blue Devils come-from-behind 6-5 win over Niagara-Wheatfield on April 25. Down 5-2 going into the bottom of the seventh the Blue Devils rallied and used back-to-back suicide squeezes to win.

“I think there’s a wide variety of kids on the team and I think they’re actually starting to come together as a team,” West coach Johnny Haynes said.”Cheering everybody on. Everybody wants to be successful and I think everybody knows their role now. They’re accepting that and moving forward with it.”

The Bulldogs, meanwhile, are trying to put the pieces together after a tough week.

“Full credit to Coach Haynes and Ken West,” said Ken-East coach Les Simon.”The really laid one on us today. We have a good team, good players, but we are playing very poorly. We will look to our seniors to pick things up. I sure that happens soon.”

The two schools will meet again on May 11 in the annual under the lights double header at Sheridan Park.