Greene celebrates Payton Yahner’s inside the park home run (Photo by Morgan Golliver)

GREENE – On Tuesday, the Greene Trojans softball team defeated Edison 4-0 to advance to the Section IV Class B semi-finals.

The Trojans offense got started early in the first inning as Olivia Kennedy led off with a single and her courtesy runner, Adreana Romano stole two bases on her behalf. She scored on a sac-fly from catcher McKenzie Scott. Payton Yahner was next and she drilled a ball to deep center for an inside-the-park home run.

Greene scored its last two runs in the third with Kylie Ferris reaching on an infield single and DJ Lora reaching on an error. Rhea Malmquist laid down an impressive sacrifice bunt to advance the runners and Ferris scored during Abbey Yahner’s at bat. Yahner went 2-for-3 with two bunt singles. Natalie Scofield helped contribute with a groundout RBI.

While Greene did not score again, they laid down multiple bunts in the fifth inning. Payton Yahner had an infield bunt single as she hustled to beat the throw to first base while teammate Lora’s ball rolled towards third base that no one could get to because they were playing too shallow.

On the mound, Olivia Kennedy was phenomenal with 15 strikeouts. She had a no-hitter leading up to the fourth. With two outs, Edison got on with a single but failed to score. They also had two base runners in the seventh after a single and a walk, but Kennedy struck out the final batters to finish the game strong.

Greene hosts the semi-finals on Thursday afternoon. They will face Spencer-Van Etten, coming off a 14-3 win over Lansing. Game time is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.

Box Score

Runs by Inning R H E

Edison

0-0-0-0-0-0-0 0 2 2

Greene

2-0-2-0-0-0-0 4 10 1