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Sports

Tolland High Softball Heads to Postseason, Bests Fermi

With stellar pitching by Jess Olson and hot bats, the Eagles defeated Fermi and walk into the postseason for sixth year in a row.

The offense was there for the Tolland softball team, but with Jess Olson on the mound, it didn’t need to be.

Olson held Fermi to one run over six innings and received plenty of support in an 11-1 win over the Falcons Wednesday at Tolland High School.

The win clinched a spot in the Class M state tournament for the sixth time in as many years.

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“She’s smart,” Tolland head coach Tom Drury said. “She hits her spots and she has enough velocity to keep people off balance,” he said, adding that Olson and her younger sister, Sammie Olson, have never taken pitching lessons. 

Sammie Olson, a sophomore, worked around some wildness in the final inning to close out the win for her sister.

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Up 2-0 in the third, Tolland broke it open with three runs in the inning.

Jaqui Foreman roped a 1-2 pitch from Fermi’s Liz Rogers into the left center gap to make it 3-0, and then Katie Ackerley followed with a hard liner to left on Rogers’ first offering to push across two more runs.

For Foreman, the Olson sisters and Ashley Clawson, making it to a regional tournament is old hat. The teammates played on Tolland’s basketball team, which made it to the Class M semifinals for the second straight year.

“We’ve got a lot of basketball players and they usually don’t get their swing until later in the season and you’re starting to see that now,” Drury said.

Foreman bounced a two-run single up the middle to make it 7-0 in the fourth.

“They’re athletic and make good adjustments,” Fermi head coach Sean Sweeney said of the Eagles. “With Tolland, everyone picks everybody else up. It’s nice for us to see that; that’s where we strive to be.

Olson scattered five hits through her six innings of work, and didn’t allow a run her final inning with the game already in hand.

“I’ve always liked Olson,” Sweeney said. “She just pitched; she goes about her business and doesn’t talk.”

Sammie Olson and Foreman each went 2-for-4, while Melissa Urbon was 2-for-4 for the Falcons, scoring their lone run on Sara Moynihan’s RBI single.

Moynihan, who entered the game as a defensive replacement, also made a diving catch to rob Foreman of a potential extra base hit in the sixth.

Tolland (8-5) travels to RHAM Thursday, while Fermi (2-10) hosts Hartford Public Thursday as well. Both games are at 3:45 p.m.

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