Lansingburgh's Meg Volz (13) runs back to the dugout past Sarah Cipperly (10) after scoring on a wild pitch in the first inning against Mechanicville Monday afternoon at Knickerbacker Park. In the seventh inning, in a 3-3 game, Volz doubled, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored when Cipperly laced a single into right field on the first pitch she saw, sealing a 4-3 victory for the Lady Knights, now in sole control of first place in the Colonial Council. (All photos by J.S. Carras - The Record).

"Normally I always feel the first pitch is one of best ones I’m going to get, so I was ready to hit," Cipperly said. "It was just a really good feeling to get that hit."

Mechanicville's Shannon McBride (above) pitched a tremendous game, striking out 10 and walking none, but allowed three unearned runs before Cipperly plated Volz to end the game.

Mechanicville struck back to tie the game in the sixth inning on a two-run single by M.K. Malone and the Lady Knights put a pair of hits together to win the game in the bottom of the next frame.

"They made mistakes and we made mistakes it was a battle of who made the most mistakes would lose," said Mechanicville head coach Don Arceneaux. "And I guess that was us."

Sarah Cipperly makes a catch over the head of second baseman Sam Woitkoski. Woitkoski committed two errors, but did cleanly cover first base on four sacrifice bunts by Mechanicville.

Woitkoski, who also serves as Lansingburgh's No. 2 pitcher, fired a strike to first to end the seventh inning when the Raiders had the go-ahead run standing on third base.

"Woitkoski had some troubles today, but I told her, 'you made a play when it really counted, you came through and that’s a good sign'," said Lansingburgh head coach John Cipperly. "At the end they kind of settled down and you have to feel good about that because they delivered."

Volz holds up the ball after making a fantastic diving catch in front of pitcher Erin Glikes to rob Mechanicville's Anna Arceneaux of a base hit in the third inning. Volz scored two of Lansingburgh's runs and has done a great job setting the table for the Knights this season.

Lansingburgh's Erin Glikes fires to home plate during Monday's game. She saw Mechanicville advance runners to scoring position in five of the seven innings she pitched but generally worked her way through jams. The American International-bound senior struck out seven and walked two.

One of the most important things Glikes did in the offseason was to convince fellow senior and basketball team member Tina Johnston to return to the diamond after a two-season absence. Johnston laced a triple in the left-center field gap and later scored on a fielding error.

Johnston will be playing college basketball at SUNY-Cobleskill and now that her basketball season is over, she decided to come out of the team again, adding a veteran bat to the Knights' lineup.

"She's going to college for basketball and I don’t know if it was that basketball is over or if we were really annoying," Glikes laughed of her persuasive tactics, "but I’m sure glad she did."

Mechanicville's Danielle Manupella makes a catch to rob Volz of extra bases to lead off the third inning. Maiello was one of four Red Raiders batters to successfully lay down a sacrifice bunt but Mechanicville just did not get the clutch hits they were looking for, save for M.K. Malone's two-RBI single in the sixth, which tied the game at three.

"You need a timely hit to go in there somewhere and we got one," Arceneaux said. "We needed a couple more of those."

"(Mechanicville is) the class of Section II as far as I’m concerned, regardless of the size of the school," said John Cipperly. "There is nobody with more success. It’s always something that makes you feel good when you can compete with them, that’s for sure. We have a lot of respect for coach Arceneaux and his program and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We knew they were going to come back and they did."

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In other news on Monday, Catholic Central's Maddie Coneys pitched a perfect game against Schenectady in her varsity debut, as the sophomore set down the Patriots in a 6-0 Big 10 victory.

"In my 27 years of coaching, I swear this is the first perfect game I’ve ever seen," Catholic Central coach Jack O’Grady said. "This was really something and she was impressive."
"She was in control the whole game," O’Grady said. "There were only a couple times when they actually put good wood on the ball and luckily we caught those."

Columbia defeated Shenendehowa in their only Suburban Council meeting of the year, a 6-5 decision in Clifton Park.
Brittany Hart singled twice and drove in two runs for Columbia (5-0, 5-2) and Jena Servidone pitched a complete game to earn the win.

In baseball news, Lansingburgh shut down Mechanicville, 13-6 and Cohoes knocked off Cobleskill-Richmondville, 9-3. The Knights and the Tigers meet on Wednesday in a big-time Colonial Council showdown.

Colonie defeated crosstown rival Shaker and the Garnet Raiders are starting to heat up after some early-season struggles.
Shenendehowa blanked Columbia, 6-0, and Hoosic Valley edged Cambridge 3-2 in eight innings.