Campbell opens Series with victory
Campbell answered immediately, as Tara Hughes and Kelsey Knowles drew back-to-back walks to start bottom of the first. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch, and Hughes was driven in on Kacey Wood's ground back to Leonard on the mound.
BY COLLIN WRIGHT THE LEADER

PAINTED POST - Campbell scored seven runs over the final two innings to hold off Corning Red and open its defense of the 14-and-Under Cinderella World Series title with a win.

Corning struck first, pushing across a run in the opening half inning. Jessica Berleue drew a one out walk to start things for Red. That was followed by Ashley Pischel's grounder, which hit Berleue in the foot in front of the second baseman, creating a dead ball with two outs. Pischel advanced to second when Amy Hammond drew a third consecutive walk for the team, and Pischel scored when Brooke Leonard singled to make it 1-0.

Campbell answered immediately, as Tara Hughes and Kelsey Knowles drew back-toback walks to start bottom of the first. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch, and Hughes was driven in on Kacey Wood's ground back to Leonard on the mound.

From there, Leonard and Campbell's Corinne Wright each managed to quiet both offenses for a while. Wright faced only seven batters through the next two innings, while Lenad worked her way out of a bases loaded jam in the second before facing just eight batters combined in the third and fourth.

The second time through the order proved beneficial to both teams, as Corning Red got back on the board in the top of the fifth. Rachel Speciale reached on an error to lead things off, and scored one batter later when Berleue belted a triple to the fence in right-center. After a line out, Hammond grounded out to first, driving in Berleue to make it 3-1. Leonard also tripled in the inning, but was stranded as Wright got Taylor Sparks to weakly ground back to the mound.

Once again Campbell made the lead short lived, as Knowles led off with a walk, and moved to third when Wright dropped a bloop single just inside the first baseline. With runners at second and third, Holly Seagar also singled, scoring Hughes and pushing Wright to third. Wright tied the game when she scored on a Corning error, which allowed Seagar to advance to third and Shannon Harrington to second. Both runners scored on wild pitches before the inning ended with Campbell holding a 5-3 lead.

The fireworks continued for both sides in the sixth, as Katie Wozniak earned a free pass to start things off for Corning, and then scored when the throw from third on Savanah Cook's grounder sailed out of play. Cook also scored on an throwing error, advancing home after she attempted to steal third and the throw was high.

With the score again knotted up, Campbell busted out the hitting sticks one last time. Hughes led off the bottom of the sixth with a bunt single, stole second, and scored on Kacey Wood's single. Wood moved to second on a ground out, and scored when Seagar slapped her second single of the day in to center, and went to second on the throw home from the out field.

Stephanie Stark followed that with a walk, and after both runners moved up on a wild pitch Harrington ripped a single into left which plated Seagar easily, but Stark was thrown out at the plate to end the inning.

Holding an 8-5 lead heading into the seventh, Wright coaxed Corning into three straight ground outs to end the game.

Wood finished the night with two RBI and a run scored, while Hughes was 2-for-3 and scored twice for Campbell.

Leonard went the distance and struck out 10 in the loss.