The Cougars have 16 hits as they win the PCAC championship 11-3.
By CARMINO IMONDI
Published April 24, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - Northeast's pitching was no match for Countryside's offense Friday.
The Cougars had nine unanswered runs as they beat the Vikings 11-3 for the PCAC championship. The game was called after six innings because Northeast only had eight players because one was sick.
Countryside had 16 hits - 15 singles - and pitcher Bree Spence disrupted Northeast by striking out nine in six innings. She gave up three runs on six hits.
The last time the teams met in the title game was 2001, when the Cougars shut out the Vikings 10-0.
Countryside wasted no time jumping out to an early lead, going up 2-1 through two.
The Cougars' Gionna Disalvatore and Nikki Delandy led off the third with back-to-back singles. After a wild pitch moved them up, Spence and Kallan Casey scored the runners on a groundout and a sacrifice fly.
Disalvatore's base hit to centerfield in the fourth skipped passed Brittany Tuliano and scored Kit Dunbar and Allison Kidman, giving Countryside a 6-1 lead.
"We felt once we got ahead and gained enough confidence, then we would be able to preserve this victory," Cougars coach Kaylyn Bayly said.
Delandy and Disalvatore were a combined 4-for-7 with four singles and two RBIs. Casey was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs, while Alyssa Albritten went 2-for-3 with two singles and two RBIs.
Stephanie Davies took the loss for Northeast. She pitched 31/3 innings, giving up five runs on eight hits. First baseman April Varner went 2-for-3 with an RBI.
The last time a south team won the title, Vikings coach Holli Yates played for the winning team - St. Petersburg. Yates was a senior for the Green Devils, who beat Seminole 6-4 in 1998.
Despite their performance Friday, the game that clinched the south division title for Northeast was one of its best performances of the season. Sophomore pitcher Stephanie Davies threw a perfect game against Boca Ciega on Wednesday as the Vikings won 1-0.
Davies had seven strikeouts and allowed no hits and no walks in her first perfect game. Northeast's defense had no errors.
"It really proved we all worked as a team," Yates said. "I knew it was in the girls."
Freshman April Varner's double scored Brittany Tuliano in the sixth.
- Times staff writer Laura Lee contributed to this report.
