By Terry Duckett, tduckett@qconline.com

ONEIDA -- The ROWVA softball team had a little something more than first place in the Lincoln Trail Conference on its mind when it took the field against Annawan-Wethersfield Tuesday.

When the Titans won their first Class 1A regional softball championship last May, it was at the expense of the Tigers, who took out some of their frustration Tuesday afternoon as Megan Foglesong tossed a four-hitter and struck out six in a 5-1 victory over A-W.

"They knocked us out in the regional finals last year, and we'd been talking about that a lot,'' said Foglesong, whose efforts enabled the 7-1 Tigers to stay in a first-place tie atop the LTC at 3-0. "So it was a little revenge for that. Once we settled down, we were OK.''

The Titans (8-5, 2-1) had a chance to get to Foglesong in the top of the first inning when her A-W counterpart, Megan Foes, drew a lead-off walk and Celina VanHyfte was hit by a pitch with one out. Both runners advanced to second and third, but ROWVA got out of the inning unscathed.

"We both had our chances early,'' said A-W coach Jeremy Trill. "It (not scoring in the first) did hurt, but (ROWVA) didn't score for another few innings after that. However, they took advantage of their chances later in the game.''

After going up 1-0 on an unearned run in the last of the second, the Tigers gave themselves some breathing room against A-W's sophomore ace Foes in the fifth, scoring four runs. A two-run double by Foglesong was the decisive blow.

That was plenty for the ROWVA ace. Despite battling lower back pain, Foglesong was able to weather a shaky sixth in which the Titans got on the scoreboard on Emillie Wright's RBI single to finish the game and move to 6-1.

"The back was bothering me, but I've got a high tolerance for pain,'' she said. "Certain pitches it hurt worse than others, but it was nothing major. There's always something wrong with me, so I'm used to it.''

While ROWVA enjoyed its revenge Tuesday, Annawan-Wethersfield will have its chance for redemption Thursday when it welcomes the Tigers to Howes Park.

"We'll use this as a springboard to get better in the next game,'' said Trill. "We made three errors today, so we definitely want to cut those down.''