When the OLSH and Cornell softball teams met on Tuesday in Coraopolis, both teams were looking to get things going in the right direction. In some ways, both succeeded.

OLSH, a perennial playoff team, picked up the win in three innings, 25-0, but more important than the score was for each team to start building.

The Chargers, now 2-2 overall and in Section 3-A play, were looking to shake off consecutive losses to Vincentian and Avonworth, while the Raiders, at 0-7, continued to show improvement toward rebuilding their program.

After scoring a run in the first meeting between the teams this year on April 3, Cornell was unable to bring a player home in Tuesday's meeting. The team did draw three walks and got a single by April Bucek to put runners on base in all three innings against OLSH pitcher Alyssa Petrella.

"That's our goal, to stay positive and work on what we need to work on," Cornell coach Megan Carpenter said. "We ask the girls to give us everything they can, and that's what they're doing."

The effort showed on defense with two plays in particular, a hard liner caught by third baseman Melissa Metheny for the final out of the second inning, and a diving pick-up by Bucek, who flipped the ball to second for a force-out in the third.

The Chargers, on the other hand, were trying to get their offense jump-started after scoring just one run against Vincentian and four against Avonworth.

Hard-hitting juniors Amanda Taylor and Devin McGrath showed off their power swings against Cornell, each hitting a home run and recording six RBI in the game. Taylor finished 3-for-4 at the plate, while McGrath hit safely in her only two at-bats.

"We were coming off a couple of games that were not great games for us. We had the Avonworth game and then threw it away with some errors," OLSH coach Bill Wills said.

"I still feel we're going to come out of this, and the girls are working hard, believe me."

The Chargers have had plenty of time to work in practice, as the weather has prevented OLSH from taking the field for most of the season's first half.

With only four games played so far, OLSH still has 11 section contests to play over the last three-and-a-half weeks, in addition to any non-section games the team is able to make up.

The long stretches with no games have prevented the Chargers from getting into a groove this season, something they hope Tuesday's win will be the first step toward accomplishing.

"It's been a little busy, because our first two games of the season got cancelled," McGrath said. "Then every time it looks nice out, our games still get cancelled."

"We're just trying to get everything together because we're already down two section games. We just need to get in a rhythm and win some games."

For McGrath, getting into a rhythm is a personal goal as much as a team goal, after returning to the field at the end of March, following an illness which had her hospitalized for nearly a month.

"I was definitely looking forward to coming back," she said. "After missing the basketball playoffs, I wasn't about to miss softball."

"I'm catching up on my schoolwork still, I've got about a week left of that, and we've been busy (with softball) because of the rain. I'm still trying to get everything together."

In Tuesday's game, Petrella, a sophomore, finished with seven strikeouts to earn the win for OLSH, giving Wills more reason to like the pitching depth his team has with senior Emily Kyrargyros and junior Darian Ouzts.

"Having the three girls is going to be a big thing for us," Wills said.

"In the losses we've had, we've played a lot better than the score looked. We're an aggressive team and we made some baserunning errors and fielding errors."

OLSH gets back into section play hosting North Catholic (3-5, 2-5) today at 4 p.m., while Cornell travels to Avonworth (3-4, 2-2) at the same time.