A NEW REIGN: Backed by another stellar defensive outing, timely hitting key once again to guide No. 4 Lady Wolverines towards 4th Section V title in 5 years in 5-0 blank of No. 2 Oakfield-Alabama

HONEOYE FALLS — Traveling right alongside the Wellsville Lady Lions, as well as Friendship/Scio, over the course of the last five years, have been the Bolivar-Richburg Lady Wolverines. The championship glory shared amongst the three elite softball programs has been astounding.

The combination they have unlocked for ultimate victory consists of 11 Section V titles, seven Far West Regional trips, five State Final Four appearances and a State Championship. And a partridge in a pear tree.

The Lady Wolverines have been responsible for three Class C2 Championships, all of which coming in consecutive fashion from 2021 to 2023 before being halted by Caledonia-Mumford in the Semifinal round, last Spring. In 2025, the hope right from the beginning was to pick up where they immediately left off from their season-ending defeat against the Lady Raiders.

Right from the start, the Lady Wolverines were buckled in for an early rollercoaster ride filled with ups and downs at a high rate of speed. Reaching the highest of highs after wins over Fillmore and Genesee Valley/Belfast to name a few, while enduring defeats to the hands of Allegany-Limestone, Franklinville and Avoca-Prattsburgh.

The latter of those defeats back on May 7 at Stan Harris Field in Richburg was a 16-4 five-inning subjugation to the hands of the Lady Titans. It swiftly met Bolivar-Richburg with a mid-season crossroads.

It was make or break time.

Every mid-season rebound has to have a starting point. Head Coach Brooke Lovell advocated that this particular day was going to serve as the zenith of their turn-around.

Where exactly did the Lady Wolverines look first? — The first item simply, the little things.

“That was absolutely going to be the turning point of our season,” she said. “We have preached as a team since the beginning of this year that even though we were going to tangle with some inconsistencies, we were going to find and power our way through it. We were going to focus on getting better and being more consistent, and it started with doing the little things correctly.”

As soon as the Lady Wolverines began to remedy every single thing following that day, all of the pieces to the grand puzzle began to fall in place.

Believe it or not, it took effect the very next day back on their home field against Fillmore in what was a 9-4 victory. And that winning element to the game was something that never stopped from that point on. Just some of the remaining triumphs? — A 5-2 edge over Hornell on May 9, and perhaps the most important victory of the bunch: A 4-0 shutout of Genesee Valley/Belfast nearly a week later to essentially lock up the Allegany County League Championship all for themselves.

No matter how compacted the remainder of their schedule had appeared, because of the Spring’s wrath, the windshield ahead remained clear.

All of a sudden, the Lady Wolverines of Bolivar-Richburg now stood 21 outs away from beginning a new reign in Section V on a chilly Saturday evening at Honeoye Falls-Lima.

With No. 2 Oakfield-Alabama serving as the lone barricade in front of the finish line, the Lady Wolverines would have to fasten their seatbelts just as quick as they took them off following their 9-2 win over defending Class C2 champion Dundee/Bradford over the road the previous night. And like in a vast majority of that battle, the defense had to find its way to coruscate through the mostly cloudy skies surrounding the home turf of the Lady Cougars.

Aside from Friday night’s Semifinal battle, the Lady Wolverines have been an absolutely sublime, well-oiled machine behind their star pitcher, Kylee Whiting, manufacturing back-to-back shutouts against Perry and Kendall to start their postseason trek through Class C2.

After it was all over, the third time was the charm? Or maybe, the fourth time? You decide.

Whichever question was posed, the Lady Wolverines had the answer to both — a shutout and a seat at Section V’s high table once again.

To go with perhaps their most masterful of defensive outings thus far in Sectionals, the nature of their offensive game to back it up was once again timely hitting. After the bats commenced with two big runs in the first three innings of play, the Lady Wolverines later found the prettiest of bows to wrap up their fourth Section V title in a five-year span — a three-run top of the sixth inning, as they ultimately hightailed out of reach of the No. 2 Lady Hornets to secure what was a 5-0 shutout in the Class C2 Finals.

“I’m really proud of how resilient and mentally tough my players have become this season. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but they were able to battle back so to speak, and overcome those,” Lovell said. “They had a goal in mind at the beginning of the season to get back into the Sectional Finals, and they were able to accomplish that and win. Winning a Sectional title means a lot not only to our team, but to our school and the community. This is a very special group who have worked countless hours in the off-season to get ready for this exact moment. They deserve this.”

To commence the championship festivities, both the Lady Wolverines (16-4) and Lady Hornets kept one another under wraps during their opening at-bats, as both Kylee Whiting and Savannah Durham, along with the defenses behind them, went an immediate 1-2-3 to bring the closing of the first inning at the snap of a finger.

But in the top half of the second, Bolivar-Richburg went to work with the heart of the order stepping into the batter’s box, as they laid the lumber down on four huge hits — two of them on a back-to-back sequence from Rylee Whiting and Cassidy Stives. After Danika Loucks added a bunt following Stives’, the bases were loaded. Despite two outs on the board, the Lady Wolverines were going to make sure they made the most of it, as Emma Sisson connected with an infield hit to score Whiting from third to provide the first fissure into the ice.

The Lady Hornets contracted a threat of their own with one out, sending two base-runners on with a single and a walk. But the Lady Wolverines prevented that threat from escalating any further, as Whiting regrouped rapidly and handed out two straight strikeouts to shut down Oakfield-Alabama, preserving the lead.

In the top of the third, the momentum carried over for the No. 4 seeds and remained there, capitalizing on an error-filled defensive stand from the Lady Hornets to double their lead. Looking to add more damage to the mix, the Lady Wolverines could not find that next punch to deliver, as the No. 2 seeds responded in a big way by leaving all the bases loaded to work their way off the field.

Bolivar-Richburg remained in cruise control through the next three innings of play, with Whiting scoring two more strikeouts in the midst of their 1-2-3 bottom half before an electric 6-3 double play ball headlined by a phenomenal snag by Stives at shortstop set up another rapid-fire sequence to keep the Lady Hornets at bay.

With time beginning to wind down, the time to pull away had arrived. In their penultimate appearance at the plate, the Lady Wolverines used a mix of timely hitting and two more Lady Hornets errors to string together a trio of runs that kept the game out of reach, with Jayna Thomas and her lead-off triple straight to the center field fence paving the way. On the very next at-bat, Teegan Sibble put down an incredible bunt down the first baseline to score a galloping Thomas easily from third to claim a 3-0 advantage.

Kylee Whiting then stepped in to airlift a shot into left field that skipped past the Lady Hornets, allowing Sibble to speed all the way around home. Whiting was not far behind her, as she used a series of errant throws to touch all the bags before scratching across as the team’s fifth and final run.

The play sent the Bolivar-Richburg side of the field into absolute chaos.

To ensure their seat at the Section V throne once again, the Lady Wolverines evaded one final opportunity from Oakfield-Alabama to crack the scoreboard with two runners on, as the defense registered three straight outs soon after — two of which by strikeout for Whiting, to fling their gloves into the air and celebrate their trip back up to the top of the softball mountain once again.

“The defense behind Kylee has been outstanding,” said Lovell. “Cassidy has made three huge plays in the last two games for us that really helped us propel the momentum. We put a lot of time into our defensive sets every time out. We do a lot of skill work, situational play, get a lot of reps in. It’s just absolutely phenomenal to see all of that pay off for them.”

Bolivar-Richburg concluded their championship victory with a five-run, 10-hit display at the plate, with four different hitters, including Thomas and Cassidy Stives, all recording two hits, with Danika Loucks and Emma Sisson each garnering two hits of their own at the bottom of the order to help guide the way forward.

On the mound, Whiting scored a victory that perhaps has never loomed larger through her brilliant Varsity career thus far, as the freshman stalwart took absolute command of the circle again by holding Oakfield-Alabama to just four hits, striking out nine and walking three to earn the shutout and the tournament’s MVP.

Up next, the Lady Wolverines will now begin a new journey: A potential trip to States. But first, they will need to punch a preliminary ticket there in the Class C State Qualifier coming up on Monday, where they will prepare to take on Class C1 champion and defending Class C State Finalist Bloomfield in a 5:30 p.m. first pitch in Livonia.

Bolivar-Richburg 011 003 0 — 5 10 0

Oakfield-Alabama 000 000 0 — 0 4 5

B-R – Kylee Whiting (WP) (CG, 9K, 3BB) and Sydney Faulkner.

O-A – Savannah Durham (LP) (CG, 9K, 3BB) and Ysabella Schrauger.