GIMME FIVE: Perry blasts go-ahead double in 6th, Dunbar holds down fort for No. 1 Lady Lions to secure 5th straight Class B2 Championship with galvanizing 2-1 win over No. 2 Avon

[PHOTOS PROVIDED]

HONEOYE FALLS — Since the very beginning of her journey, the game of softball courses through the blood of Gia George at a rate like no other.

From her playing days with a New York State powerhouse in Portville, to her collegiate career at Monroe Community College, it is a sport she has continued to devote her entire life to. When her career on the field as a player reached its conclusion, she then made the full swing into coaching in Allegany County just a few years ago, when she spent her inaugural season in Whitesville back in 2018.

Following that 12-7 season with the Lady Blue Jays, George packed her bags and went up the road to Wellsville, where she has spent the last several years helping continue the overwhelming greatness of the Lady Lions softball program alongside former longtime head coach Matt Burke, as well as former co-head coaches Jaime McLaughlin and Shelley Chaffee.

Because of all their efforts, the Lady Lions have emerged as one of New York State’s premier softball programs. Bar none.

Since 2021, they have backed that prestigious pedigree up in every way, shape and form possible. The passion for the game, the hard work and dedication to perfect their craft, everything. The Lady Lions have laid it all on the line every single Spring for the last four years running to become Section V Champions.

For George, it was now her turn to add her carbon footprint in the midst of one of the most dominant stretches in Wellsville sports history, as the program’s new head coach.

The opposition they were pinned up against at Honeoye Falls-Lima on Thursday was most certainly no slouch — the No. 2 Avon Lady Riverhawks, led by one of the State’s premier pitchers in Jessie Crye, who boasts a season ERA well under 1.00 from within the circle.

In short: The Avon junior has been lights out.

To say that the task at hand could perhaps be one of the most challenging that the Lady Lions have faced all season, would be an understatement. That was most certainly the case when the time to battle for championship glory came under the lights at the home of the Lady Cougars.

With Wellsville’s ace, Makenna Dunbar, countering Crye for the Riverhawks, the two teams proceeded to wage war, as they combined for only three runs across all seven innings of action. The tension was high, the nerves even more so. After three scoreless innings, the offenses went to work at the assembly line, both creating level ground once again with a run each side in the fourth inning.

It would then approach final at-bat territory, where time has moved on to its final granules of sand in the hourglass. But for the Lady Lions, it was one more opportunity to force Avon against the wall. What better way to do that, than with your heart of the order coming up to hit.

As a result, the Lady Lions went on to put together a sixth inning of a lifetime.

For George, the long wait to taste Sectional glory herself, was finally over.

For the fifth straight season, the Lady Lions of Wellsville have stayed the course towards Sectional glorification, as they used a massive RBI double sandwich in the bottom of the sixth inning to break free from Avon’s grasp, beginning with Makenna Dunbar and ending with Kennedy Perry, who drove in her fellow teammate for the second and go-ahead run to set up a clean seventh inning of play to become this year’s Class B2 Champions once again with a 2-1 victory over the Lady Riverhawks.

“I am so proud of this team,” George said. “We have an incredible group of senior leaders that we can lean on in these tough games. Makenna pitched a great game for us, but we also played great defense behind her. Lindsay Stuck had a diving catch on a bunt and Natalie Adams had some great catches at second. Kudos to Avon’s pitcher Jessie, she’s a great ball-player. We knew it would be a tough match-up against her, and I’m happy we were able to squeeze across our two runs. Five Sectional titles in a row is an amazing feeling. I’m grateful for this to be my first, but we wouldn’t be here without all the previous coaches as well.”

Through the first three half-innings shared between the two squads, Crye and Dunbar paced their respective defenses at a rapid rate, as they assembled three straight 1-2-3 innings to keep one another at bay. The Lady Lions (19-2) received their first opportunity to crack through the Lady Riverhawks at the plate with a single from Lindsay Stuck, seeing her work the bases all the way to third before she was ultimately left on after a pop-out by Averee Palmatier right to first base.

After another opportunity was missed by the Lady Lions in the third inning, the momentum that Avon built off that stint of defense translated to the plate to break the ice first with a lead-off triple kicking off their fourth inning offense. A few moments later, a sacrifice putout from Rylie Miller with the bases loaded behind Dunbar allowed the Lady Riverhawks to scratch their first and only run across.

The response that Wellsville fired right back was one of expeditious fashion, as Teagan Burke blooped a shot straight overtop of the pitcher’s mound, garnering enough distance to bring Stuck home from third base to tie the game at one each side. The rapid exchange of innings between the two hurling dynamos raged on until the bottom of the sixth inning for the Lady Lions.

In that frame of play, the defending Class B State Champions went to work, sandwiching a big Crye strikeout for Avon with a pair of doubles — one each off the bats of Dunbar and Perry, with the latter of the pair resulting in Wellsville’s go-ahead run as Perry scored Dunbar at the most crucial of times to take a 2-1 edge going into the final inning of the night.

In that seventh inning, the rest was on the shoulders of Dunbar to seal the deal, as the senior hurler recorded her 11th and final strikeout of the night right at the very end of it all to send the cascade of gloves into the air in celebration of their fifth straight Section V Championship.

Dunbar finished with the complete game victory, holding Avon to just two hits the entire way.

As for the bats, the Lady Lions assembled a two-run, six-hit offensive effort at the plate, with Brynn Hallock and Hailey Cowburn each adding a hit along the way.

Coming up on a busy Saturday around Section V, the Lady Lions will now head back up north to the confines of Monroe Community College where they will take on Class B1 champion Bath-Haverling for an opportunity to make their grand return to the New York State Tournament in a couple of weeks, in the Class B State Qualifier game.

First pitch between the Lady Rams and Lady Lions is slated for a 5:30 p.m. start.

Avon 000 100 0 — 1 2 1

Wellsville 000 101 X — 2 6 0

AVON – Jessie Crye (LP) (CG, 5K, 2BB) and Abigail Schutz.

WLSV – Makenna Dunbar (WP) (CG, 11K) and Lindsay Stuck.