Original article by Adam Regan, Alexander Martin and Bryan Cooney, Fort Myers News-Press
Region 2A Final
Academy at the Lakes 2, Seacrest 0
Seacrest Country Day saw its season end thanks to the same pitcher for the third year in a row.
The Stingrays fell 2-0 to the Academy at the Lakes and their 2018 state player of the year Lexi Kilfoyl.
“I’m not too disappointed. We’ve had a heck of a year,” said Seacrest coach John Kruk. “The only thing I’ve ever asked of the girls is that they compete. We’ve had to face Lexi three years in a row in the postseason, and for three straight years, she’s ended our season. I told the kids after the game that ‘Hey, we’re a bunch of eighth- and ninth-graders, and we’ve faced a potential Division I pitcher’. We fought and we competed. If we’d come out here and laid down and died, I’d have been disappointed.
“With a pitcher like Lexi, we had to hope that we’d put the ball in play and they’d make some errors. She didn’t give us a chance to do much else. But when we did put it in play, they made the plays.”
Seacrest eighth-grade pitcher Olivia Laney matched Kilfoyl most of the game.
“She was great. She pretty much matched Lexi pitch-for-pitch,” Kruk said of Laney. “She got a pitch up, and the No. 4 hitter for Academy at the Lakes hit it for a home run. I think schools are understanding that if they play us, we will compete, and play defense and get some good swings in. We will compete, no matter what the score is It’s partly because we have two pitchers who can pitch with anyone.”
It was the Academy at the Lakes’ first close game in a while. The Wildcats had won their five previous games by an aggregate of 48-5.
