Cardinal’s 16-3 win over visiting Grand Valley on Wednesday snapped the Huskie’s five-year conference losing streak.
The Huskies last won a Chagrin Valley Conference game on April 24, 2019 when they completed a season sweep of the Fairport Skippers.
Wednesday’s win snapped a 31-game conference losing streak.
“That’s a weight lifted off our shoulders,” said Cardinal coach Haley Adams. “That was one goal we really had in mind at the start of the season, to get that first CVC win, and for it to become a reality, it’s amazing. It’s a good feeling.”
Grand Valley jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first, but the Huskies went on to score the next 16 runs, including 10 in the bottom of the fourth to secure their run-rule victory.
Morgan Soltis went 3-for-4 with a team-best three runs batted in, and Emily Pleva, Maggie Grant, and Natalie Soltis each collected two hits for the Huskies.
Natalie Soltis went the distance in the circle. She allowed three runs on three hits and struck out two in five innings.
“Looking back at last year, with Maggie in the circle pitching for us, we played Kirtland and lost a heartbreaker to them, 7-5,” Adams said. “We took that game as a positive and used it as a building block for us. That was the first time we played a full seven-inning game. They were just hungry and worked extremely hard and that’s starting to feed off now onto the other girls. It’s just a building block for us.”
With the win, Cardinal improved to 1-1 in the CVC Valley Division.
