Dryden softball wins first division title since 1988

After a strong regular season for the Dryden softball team, the Lions have broken a 35-year drought.

For the first time since 1988, the Lions captured the IAC North Large Division title, beating Lansing to the punch in a race that came right down to the wire. Both teams finished 5-1 in divisional play and split their regular season meetings, so the tiebreaker came down to their records against the IAC North Small Division. Dryden and Lansing both defeated Moravia, Marathon, and Groton and lost to Union Springs, so it came down to their respective matchups against Southern Cayuga.

With Lansing losing to the Chiefs earlier in the season, Dryden had to beat them on May 8 in order to avoid a tiebreaker game the following day. The game was tied at 1-1 heading into the final inning, where the Lions would score four runs to punch their ticket to the IAC Large School Championship.

The Lions have been led all season on both sides of the plate by Kahlen Cornell. The senior continued her reign of terror across Section IV softball in the latter half of the regular season, throwing her second no-hitter of the season against Moravia and has now surpassed 400 career strikeouts. Head coach Dave Allen shared what has made her one of the best players in program history.

“She’s a workhorse,” Allen said. “She goes to pitching lessons every week. It doesn’t matter if she’s in basketball season or volleyball season or what she’s doing. She’s a leader. She pushes the girls. She holds everybody to a high standard. There’s just not a lot of players that come through Dryden with the way she works. All she wants to do is play softball, and it shows.”

Whether it’s in baseball or softball, every great pitcher needs a reliable catcher, and Olivia Surine certainly fits the bill. While the junior has been a stalwart behind the plate, limiting the amount of wild pitches and passed balls as the season has progressed. It’s a position that Allen doesn’t take for granted, especially because his daughter Lindsey used to catch for the team and his son Braden currently catches for the Dryden baseball team. 

“Olivia’s done a good job behind the plate,” Allen said. “She helps pick up the close ones that need to be strikes. She picks those up and makes them look better than they are. Being a catcher is not an easy job. The catcher’s don’t always get the fame and the glory, but they work all year long. If you’re not working on the newest stuff, you’re not going to succeed there. She’s been doing a great job for us.”

The Lions have a strong group of upperclassmen that also includes Ava Henry, Laci Prignon, and Chloe Russell, all of whom have hit home runs this season. But Dryden also has a talented core of younger players (including sophomore Brook Webster and freshmen Abigail Turco and Kennessy Drake) who have really caught Allen’s eyes for their vast improvement throughout the campaign.

“It’s all new on the freshmen that we have and in the sophomores that we moved up this year,” Allen said. “It’s a big leap going from the JV level to the varsity level. They’ve all done a great job.”

If this season wasn’t already special enough, it’s also the 50th anniversary of the Dryden softball program. On May 5 during Senior Night, three members of the inaugural 1973 team—Gail Hall, Susie Rohrer, and LeeAnn Parker—were honored. It was an unforgettable experience for all those involved.

“It was really cool to have those three ladies come back,” Allen said. “They stood out on the first base line for the national anthem and were actually singing it. It was cool [hearing] the things they said [about] back when they played. In that first year, they only played five games, they had to wear their own gym shorts and a T-shirt, and they had a pinnie to wear because the school didn’t buy any uniforms for girls sports back then. Only the boys sports received uniforms, so they had a rough get a lot of like information like that from those. It was really cool. They said they will remember that for the rest of their lives.”

While the Lions fell to Elmira-Notre Dame in the IAC Large School Championship 9-0 on May 12, the focus quickly shifted to the Section IV Class B Tournament, which begins on May 18. Allen and the Lions hope to learn a lot from their loss to the Crusaders and make a deep postseason run.

“Once you get to this level, you can sometimes fumble through parts of the season against different teams or when you’re not firing on all cylinders,” Allen said. “But when you get this late in the season, now you know you have to play clean, you can’t make errors, you got to hit the ball and fight through till the end, and hopefully we can come out with something.”