September 12, 2026 | Springfield, IL: In a best-of-three series, Game 2 is baseball\u2019s version of golf\u2019s \u201cmoving day.\u201d For the Queens, it was a chance to clinch a championship berth \u2013 but a hungry Heights team\u2019s bite was bigger than their bark as they hung on to secure a championship berth on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Heights scored first with two of the best 1-2 hitters in the league. Natsuki Yonetani and Denae Benites had back-to-back base hits, and Claire O\u2019Sullivan RBI doubled to left.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LA answered back in the second on a mirror image of consecutive singles by Sarah Edwards and Isabella Villareal. Edwards scored on Samaria Benitez\u2019s base hit up the middle, extending her hitting streak to 11.<\/p>\n
In the top of the third, with Sato relieving Jamie Mackay, Benites struck again, launching a two-run blast that brought Yonetani home. The Queens pulled within one in the bottom half; Caitlin Eynon lined a low pitch single, Edwards drew a walk, and Villareal hit a high pop fly that dropped just inside the left field line, out of reach of two NY defenders.<\/p>\n
Four Heights hitters exploded in the top of the fourth for four runs off four hits, with the help of a walk and a balk. Claire O\u2019Sullivan came to the bump in place of Raykung Kim in the bottom frame and made quick work of the Queens, retiring the side in order.<\/p>\n
Facing a 7-2 deficit, Ashton Lansdell sparked a fifth-inning rally by reaching on a hit-by-pitch. The LA captain stole second, advanced to third, and scored on a Sarah Edwards line drive to center. Villareal followed with a two-out single up the middle, and Ayuri Shimano delivered a dramatic, two-RBI pinch-hit single that eluded both the infield and outfield. Shimano was thrown out at third on the play, a millisecond after two runners crossed the plate, narrowing NY\u2019s lead to 7-5.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amira Hondras took the hill in the top of the sixth and kept the score intact. She retired Yonetani \u2013 previously perfect in the postseason and Benites was caught stealing for a WPBL career first, to the delight of the \u201ccolorfully\u201d animated Queens catcher, Mackay.<\/p>\n
LA made some comeback noise in the bottom half. Mo\u2019ne Davis legged out a shallow base hit to right, Benitez was beaned, and Lansdell launched a laser to left. What looked like a go-ahead homer ended up as a long RBI single after London Studer couldn\u2019t hold onto the ball, prompting Claire Eccles to remove her eyeglass like Clark Kent and make her way to the mound.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The lefty immediately walked Mackay to load the bases, giving up the tying run on a hit-by-pitch to Eynon. Villarreal, who will forever be shown in replays every time she comes to the plate with runners on base and the game on the line, hit a slow roller to the pitcher, leaving the bags full of go-ahead runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And in the fateful final frame \u2013 Queens closer, Meggie Meidlinger, who\u2019s been tagged by NY in similar fashion during the regular season, gave up the first of the league\u2019s back-to-back home runs to Claire Oh! Sullivan and Keira Izumi, who came in for defense late in the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Clear your schedule for Monday and get in front of a TV \u2013 this is going to be one helluva rubber match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 12, 2026 | Springfield, IL: In a best-of-three series, Game 2 is baseball\u2019s version of golf\u2019s \u201cmoving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-345441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}