State-ranked Camden off to strong start in Section III, TVL softball

CAMDEN — The Camden Blue Devils were Section III's last unbeaten softball team this spring and remain so for playoff seeding purposes following their first loss Saturday to a team from Section II.

One of five state-ranked teams in the Tri-Valley League through the end of April, the Blue Devils, now 9-1, won their first eight games to start the season, scoring 10 runs or more seven times, and climbed to No. 6 in the New York State Sportswriters and Coaches Organization for Girls Sports' Class A rankings before Saturday's 4-2 loss to Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, the No. 7 team in Class AA.

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Senior Brooke Musch recently homered in five consecutive games and had two in Friday's win at Central Valley Academy, including one of the team's four in the fifth inning. An all-state selection each season dating back to her freshman year, Musch has multiple hits in all but three of Camden's games with 22 RBI and 24 runs scored. She homered against Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake and had that streak end late in the day against Saratoga Springs, a 13-5 win in which she singled three times and tripled, raising her batting average to .667; she has also walked 14 times in 10 games.

Layla Killino, one of two other seniors on the Camden roster, has allowed eight earned runs in 57 innings as the team's primary pitcher. Killino is also batting .486 with 16 RBI and hit one of the three other home runs against Central Valley Academy along with freshman Amber Shenk and eighth-grader Abigail Hebble.

Sophia Barker has scored 15 runs, Avery Prievo and Camryn Shenk 13 each. and Amber Shenk and Ari Killino 12 each for a team that averages 12.1 runs per game.

Camden is not the only strong starter in the area. With Saturday's loss, the Blue Devils are one of three Class A teams and 10 total in Section III with single losses as the regular season enters its final two weeks. Among the other teams on that list are Class B Sherburne-Earlville (7-1) and Class C West Canada Valley (8-1) in the Center State Conference, and Class D Stockbridge Valley (7-1) in the Central Counties League.

Chittenango (8-1) and South Jefferson (10-1) are the other one-loss Class A teams. New Hartford (9-3) and Central Valley Academy (7-3) from the Tri-Valley League join Camden in the Class A state rankings, at 17th and tied for 25th, respectively, with Whitesboro (9-2) 20th in Class AA, and Utica-Notre Dame (6-3) 25th in Class B.

Other than a head-to-head loss to Camden, New Hartford's other losses have been to teams from other sections, including Bishop Kearney of Rochester on Saturday at Mudville's Officer Joe Corr Tournament. The Spartans have won their last seven games within Section III and travel Tuesday to Whitesboro where the Warriors have won six consecutive games. New Hartford has allowed six runs in six games against Section III opponents since a 14-5 win at home over Whitesboro.

Whitesboro follows New Hartford with a game against Camden on Thursday. New Hartford and Notre Dame meet in the Oneida County Stop DWI Classic on Saturday at Hamilton College.

Notre Dame had won six of its first seven games before a loss to Camden on Friday and another at Central Valley Academy on Saturday; the Jugglers had shut out Central Valley Academy at home two days earlier.

Rome Free Academy (6-5) and Proctor (3-9), the two largest Tri-Valley League schools, meet at Hamilton in the lone pair of Friday games at the classic. Notre Dame and New Hartford complete baseball and softball tripleheaders Saturday afternoon.

West Canada Valley has won three games in a row since its lone loss to Herkimer (8-3), and the Nighthawks have games this week against Westmoreland (7-2), the second place team in Division II of the Center State Conference, and Mt. Markham (7-4), the third.

West Canada Valley has scored at least seven runs in each of its games with 10 or more in all but two. Sophomore Kaylee Usyk leads the team with 15 hits, 13 RBI and .484 average, and senior Hanna Burdick has struck out 95 batters in 60 innings.

Sherburne-Earlville trails Herkimer in the league's Division I standings where Herkimer is unbeaten. Herkimer handed Sherburne-Earlville its only loss in April and hosts the teams' May 13 rematch.

Cincinnatus ended a long Stockbridge Valley winning streak in league that had seen the Cougars go unbeaten in the Central Counties League since before the COVID pandemic, but seventh-grader Karalynne Carmon has held her last two opponents hitless and has three five-inning no-hitters in her first varsity season. She has 111 strikeouts in 49 1/3 innings with 10 or more in each Stockbridge Valley game.

This article originally appeared on Times Telegram: State-ranked Camden off to strong start in Section III, TVL softball