The third and fourth innings were enough to doom the Marlboro softball team.

The Saugerties Sawyers scored six runs in two innings to erase a 3-run Marlboro lead, and defeated the Dukes, 8-4, in Wednesday’s Mid Hudson Athletic League semifinal at Tony Williams Park in Highland.

“I thought it was a good, well-played game, and that’s the type of games we’re going to see in these MHALs and then coming into sections,” Marlboro coach Ray Leduc said. “But they fought to the end. We had the bases loaded and we were in a spot to score a couple of runs. We had chances all day and keep putting pressure on them. We were hoping to break though but today it just didn’t go our way.”

The Dukes had taken a 3-0 lead early on the Sawyers when doubles by Madalyn Dodig and Sammie Graham produced their first run. Graham came home on a ground out by Amber Banas, and they tied the game on an RBI single by Marena Graham.

However, in the fourth inning, the Sawyers produced some more one-out thunder after Ava Del Salto, who struggled in her start on Wednesday, walked Natalie Vail. Natalie Tucker tripled home Vail and then Dodig doubled home Tucker, giving Saugerties a 5-3 lead.

Dodig scored when Del Salto couldn’t handle a comebacker from MacKenzie Sullivan.

“That’s a good-hitting team and Ava’s our ace, and I’ll go to her every time I can, good, bad or indifferent,” Leduc said. “She’s the one who’s going to take us places. It just wasn’t her day. It wasn’t her usual day, but it wasn’t a bad day. It just wasn’t her usual.”

Leduc went to Leah Gunsett, who put out the fire, striking out Banas and getting a ground ball from Graham to end the inning.

Gunsett kept the Saugerties bats in check until the seventh inning when she issued a leadoff walk to Sullivan, who scored on Lacey Schatzel’s double. Mya Barth singled her home to give the Sawyers an 8-4 lead, heading into the bottom of the seventh.

“That was big,” Leduc said. “In the end, the bottom of the order got a couple of hits, just a hit here and a hit there. They had timely hitting and unfortunately, we didn’t have the timely hitting today. That’s really what the difference was.”

Even with the Sawyers’ lead expanded in the seventh, the Dukes were able to get the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh, as Kasey Conn, DelSalto and Emma Jackson singled, but Schatzel induced a groundout from Isabella Gulcaglayan to end the game.

The Dukes manufactured a run in the first when Kalista Birkenstock led off with a single, took second on a sacrifice by Ella Leduc, stole third and scored on Conn’s sacrifice fly. After Emmie-May Cabrera tripled, DelSalto hit an RBI double down the left-field line, giving the Dukes a 2-0 lead.
Jackson singled and scored when Birkenstock reached on an error in the second inning to give Marlboro a 3-0 lead.

After Saugerties took a 6-3 lead, Cabrera homered to left field in the fifth to cut the Saugerties lead to 6-4.

“I said after the game that everybody could have done something,” Leduc said. “One hit here or there changes the game.”

Even though they were beaten in the league tournament, there is still softball in front of them as they earned the top seed in the Section 9 Class B tournament and opened on Monday with a quarterfinal matchup against the Ellenville Blue Devils.

They were scheduled to face the winner of Monday’s game between No. 4 James I. O’Neill and No. 5 New Paltz. The championship game is scheduled for Friday at 4 p.m. Middletown High School.

“We’re in the postseason; it’s one-and-done,” Leduc said. “This is the only tournament that we have where we can actually lose and continue to go forward, so that’s something to learn and work from. We’ve got some scrimmages lined up to get ready for sections.”