September 17, 2026 | Springfield, IL: Riding an adrenaline high from Wednesday night\u2019s come-from-behind victory over the Firebells, the Queens set their sights on a 2-0 series lead \u2013 proving that vision boards in baseball actually do work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Defense was to slide for on both sides of the aisle \u2013 Kelsie Whitmore, Amira Hondras, Ashton Lansdell and Diana Ibarra all got dirty for a great cause \u2013 Ibarra\u2019s game-ending diving grab in left, and reveal of the ball in her glove was pure highlight reel heaven.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lansdell continued to shock and awe with her ability to snag sharp ground balls and throw from her knees \u2013 always making it look like business as usual.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maggie Foxx put LA on top with a solo shot in the second \u2013 her first of the postseason, 3-4 on the night with a couple of RBIs. And behind the dish, when Sato wasn\u2019t getting calls on close outside pitches, Foxx, sly like her namesakes, did her best to try and frame them otherwise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the top of the third, Queens skipper Eric Young made a questionable pitching move, bringing Ayami Sato back for seconds after Isabella Villarreal gave two strong innings of two-run ball. With San Francisco nursing a one-run lead, the legendary right-hander walked a pair to load the bases, leaving the bump, down 4-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LA\u2019s offense exploded in the fourth off SF starter Jill Albayati, then continued with relievers Peyton Coria and Ela Day-B\u00e9dard. The usual culprits of walks, steals, a slew of errors, a boatload of hits and smart baserunning led to 10 runs \u2013 a WPBL record \u2013 four of which came off the bat of Ayuri Shimano, her second grand slam in 72 hours. And if that wasn\u2019t enough, the one-woman wrecking machine was 3-5, including a bunt single and two stolen bases.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sato returned in the bottom half filling the bags \u2013 and just when you thought Young made a managerial blunder \u2013 keeping his star pitcher too long at the fair \u2013 the Jewel of Japan struck out the side, notably catching Whitmore swinging and Skylar Kaplan looking. And in the sixth on her 90th pitch, she fanned the Firebell captain once more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meggie Meidlinger closed out the final frame with a K and a little help from her defensive friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 17, 2026 | Springfield, IL: Riding an adrenaline high from Wednesday night\u2019s come-from-behind victory over the Firebells,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-350272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350272","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=350272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}