BENNINGTON — Host No. 2 Mount Anthony edged the No. 3 Middlebury Union High School softball team, 2-1, in a Division I semifinal on Tuesday, ending one of the best seasons in years for the Tiger program.
The 18-1 Patriots prevailed despite being outhit by the Tigers, 10-6, as MUHS (16-3) left 10 runners on base, including the tying and go-ahead runs on second and third with one out in the top of the seventh. The loss snapped the Tigers’ 11-game winning streak.
MAU, which for only the second time this spring was held to fewer than six runs, scored both of its runs in the third inning. Kaity O’Brien drew the only walk losing pitcher Payton Buxton issued, and Kaidin Gauthier tripled her home. Gauthier scored on an infield single.
Buxton allowed six hits and struck out six batters in her six-inning stint against the powerful Patriot offense, which scored in double figures nine times in the regular season.
MAU hurler Taylor Dicranian scattered 10 hits, striking out four and walking none. The Tigers scored in the seventh, when Ally Larocque and Lily Smith led off with back-to-back singles. MaKayla Foster sacrificed them to second and third, and Hannah Lawrence singled in Larocque and stole second. But Dicranian retired the next two hitters to preserve the win.
The Tigers failed to score with two runners on base with one out in the second, and in the third Dicranian hit Larocque with a pitch and Foster and Sondra Laroche singled, but MAU center fielder Lauren Woodcock threw out Larocque trying to score. The Tigers loaded the bases with two out in the fourth, and hit into a double play in the fifth as Dicranian and the Patriots continued to dodge bullets.
Larocque singled twice, Laroche doubled and singled, and Darcy Staats doubled to pace the Tiger attack.
Lawrence, a catcher; Laroche, a first baseman; and Foster, a second baseman, all of them senior multi-year starters, suited up for the program for the last time on Tuesday.