Cornerstone Charter lets lead slip away in FHSAA 2A softball state final
· Yahoo Sports
Cornerstone Charter’s eighth grade pitching ace, Izzy Choquette, had high-powered Oxbridge Academy of West Palm Beach baffled for the first five innings in Thursday night’s FHSAA Class 1A softball state championship game.
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After walking the first batter up, she sat down 15 in a row and had her team in control with a no-hitter possible. But the Ducks’ paid a big price for their inability to come up with clutch hits to enlarge a thin 1-0 lead.
Without any margin for error the Ducks made two dream-crushing throwing errors in the seventh inning and lost 5-1 in a game played at the Boombah-Soldiers Creek Park complex in Longwood.
The start of the game was delayed by just over an hour due to lightning in the vicinity. That didn’t chase away a big crowd of Cornerstone fans who almost completely filled the home team side of the championship stadium in the six-field complex.
“We just kept letting them hang around and that cost us,” Cornerstone head coach Dan Lobozzo said afterward. “Oxbridge earned it. They played till the end.”
Cornerstone finished 23-6 and is due to bring back seven of Thursday’s 10 starters. The Ducks lineup had two eighth graders, one freshman, three sophomores, one junior and three seniors.
Oxbridge (24-3), which came in with a .433 team batting average, managed only three hits in 6⅓ innings against Choquette and five for the game. She struck out eight.
Emma Pynes, a junior slugger who batted .500 for the season to lead Cornerstone, went 0-for-3. She had 24 extra base hits this year — including nine home runs and came close to homering twice Thursday. Both of his towering drives were flyouts to left in a spacious Boombah field that has the fence 220 feet from home plate. That’s at least 20 feet deeper than what you see at most high school fields.
After the loss, Lobozzo did his best to console players. That included a long, strong hug with standout eighth grader Bella Smith, who made a throwing error that emptied the bases.
“I just told her we wouldn’t be where we are without how well she played all year. That’s just one throw, one mistake. I reminded the girls we were not even supposed to be here (based on computer rankings),” Lobozzo said. “We defied all those odds. You just don’t want this one game to define them and the season we had. I told them we need to learn from this and try to come back next year and be a little more hungry.”
Smith had Thursday’s only extra-base hit, a double to open Cornerstone’s half of the fourth inning. She moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by senior Kenzie Boisvert and scored on a sacrifice fly to center by sophomore Liany Rosario. The Ducks left four runners on base the rest of the way.
Cornerstone assistant coach Danielle Lobozzo said the girls were confident after their first at-bats that they could hit the ball against Oxbridge’s Aubrey Vital,a sophomore who came in with a 0.74 earned run average. There were some big swings but no big hits. He struck out seven.
“I think we were trying too hard to hit the long ball,” Danielle said. “Everybody was pressing.”
The Ducks were only No. 6 in the FHSAA computerized rankings, which were updated after district tournament and regional play. But only one of the top three teams got to Longwood. That was No. 1 Clearwater Calvary, which was ousted by No. 8 Oxbridge, 5-1, in a Wednesday semifinal.
Cornerstone traveled to No. 2 Montverde Academy and eliminated the Eagles with a 3-2 win in a dramatic nine-inning region semifinal.
TFA also fell in a region semi home game, losing to No. 14 Trinity Catholic of Ocala 6-3.
Cornerstone got past Trinity Catholic, 7-4, in the Region 2 final. And the Ducks ended the season of No. 4 North Bay Haven of Panama City with a 3-1 Wednesday state semifinal win that saw Choquette pitch a two-hitter with 13 strikeouts.
Cornerstone, which was a state runner-up in 2018, was attempting to be the first Orange County team to win a fastpitch softball title since TFA in 2022.
8th grader pitches Cornerstone to FHSAA 2A softball state semifinal win