JEFFERSONVILLE, NY — Saturday, April 13 was a busy day in Jeffersonville. The local school district hosted their First Annual Sullivan West Tournament to showcase their premier baseball and softball fields at the Lake Huntington campus.

But alas, it was not meant to be, as the fields were awash in pools of water and ankle deep mud, forcing the series of games to be relocated to the old fields in Jeffersonville: three baseball games at Lions Field and four softball matchups at the Lauren Hughson Memorial Field.

As the home team Lady Bulldogs defeated the Lady Wildcats of Hancock 12-5 for the second game of the day, Sullivan West was trounced 16-0 in the five-frame championship outing against the Liberty Lady Indians.

In an amazing turn of events, the Lady Bulldogs posted total of 15 errors, the kind of numbers that cause coaches to pull their hair out and wonder what the heck went wrong.

The Lady Indians scored 16 runs on 23 at-bats while the home team posted three runs on 14 trips to the plate.

On the other side of the fence, Liberty was error free behind the pitching arm of Katy Decker, who helped her own cause at the plate by going 1-for-1, two RBI and scoring two runs in her 3-hitter.

Sullivan West’s Riley Ernst was tagged with the loss, yielding a total of nine hits to the Lady Indians, while her team ticked off only three hits in the scorebook.

Liberty’s big hitters: Jerikah Fleishman (2-for-4, two RBI), Lily Alejandro (2-for-3, three RBI), Gabby Magie (1-for-3, two RBI).

Sullivan West: Isabel “Izzy” Nearing (1-for-2) and Allison Unser (2-for-2).

In the first round of the Sullivan West softball tourney, Liberty pulled off a late game win over the Lady Panthers of Monticello, defeating them 10-9.

Liberty’s big guns: Katy Decker (4-for-4, three doubles including a go-ahead double in the sixth frame, two RBI), Taylor Arpino (3-for-3, three RBI).

Monticello: Emily McCreery (2-for-3, three RBI), Bri Soto (home run, three RBI).

The story-behind-the-story was the Sullivan West athletic department’s idea to put together a combined tournament to show off their new baseball and softball diamonds.

“It was Dave Eggleton’s baby,” said Sullivan West’s athletic director Dave Franskevicz, while watching the Bulldogs take on the Eagles of Hancock/Deposit over at Lion’s Field earlier in the afternoon.

Eggleton, the head coach of the JV baseball team, said the tourney came to life by “the entire athletic department led by Mr. Franskevicz. We wanted to showcase our new fields at the high school… we wanted to showcase our fields in Lake Huntington, and also bring the community together. Just look around here today.”

“This is a vision we all had, everybody in athletics, not just baseball and softball,” said Eggleton. “They say it takes a village to raise our students, today it was the community that got this off the ground.”