HIGH SCHOOL SOFTBALL: Plymouth North bats heat up to win showdown against Silver Lake
KINGSTON – As omens go, this one didn't portend great things for the Plymouth North High softball team.
The Blue Eagles have been tearing the cover off the ball this spring, but through the first 2⅔ innings of Friday's Patriot League superpower showdown against host Silver Lake, they were getting shredded by Lakers ace Caroline Peterson, who struck out eight of the first nine batters she faced.
North's bats seemed destined for a rare quiet day.
Nope.
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In the end, the Blue Eagles were as noisy as usual, pounding out 18 hits and running away with a 17-5 win that avenged their lone loss of the season and snapped the Lakers' 14-game winning streak.
"Plymouth hit the ball better than any team I can remember in a very long time," said Silver Lake coach Tony Pina, who was denied his 200th career win. "They put tough at-bats up throughout the entire lineup. They did not provide any easy outs for us. ... Their lineup is as difficult a lineup to pitch through as I can remember."
All nine Plymouth North batters had at least one hit and eight of them drove in at least one run. The lone Eagle without an RBI was No. 2 hitter Bella Piekarski, who was 2-for-5 and scored three times. Other standouts: Kylee Carafoli (3-for-5, 2 RBI, 3 runs), Maggie Ladd (3-for-5, 3 RBI, run), Meg Banzi (3-for-5, RBI, 3 runs), Marissa Durette (1-for-2, solo home run, 4 runs), pitcher Caroline Collins (2-for-4, 2 RBI, run), Grace Beatty (1-for-5, 3 RBI, run), Kylee Hefner (1-for-4, RBI) and Callie Smith (2-run pinch-hit single).
"Their bats have been on fire all season," North coach Sue Harrison said, "and they proved that their bats are on fire (even) against a great team."
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Silver Lake (16-2) was ranked No. 7 in Division 2 in the latest MIAA power rankings that came out Thursday morning. Plymouth North (15-1) was No. 10 in Division 2 with its lone loss an 11-7 setback at home to the Lakers on May 5. In the latest Patriot Ledger/Enterprise Top 10 Ranking that came out earlier this week, Silver Lake was No. 1, having bumped No. 2 North out of the top spot.
So, yes, the Blue Eagles had this one circled on their calendar.
"Huge game," Harrison said. "They were psyched basically from the second they got to school (today) to when they stepped onto the bus and when they stepped off the bus."
"We were pretty upset about" that first Silver Lake game, said leadoff hitter Emily Jenkins, who was 2-for-5 with an RBI and a run. "We were down for most of the game and we (almost) caught up, but it was too late. This was a big game. Everyone pitched in and did something well."
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"It's hard to beat a team twice," Banzi noted. "I think that's what our mentality was coming in. We just had a bunch of emotions."
Early on, though, the predominant North emotion was frustration as they flailed against Peterson, one of the area's best pitchers.
"I was one of those strikeouts, so I was pretty nervous," Jenkins said. "The first game we played them, I personally couldn't hit her very well, so I was coming into this game nervous about my batting, but once I got one hit it came together. Everyone gets into the groove of things."
Brianna Ghilardi's bases-loaded walk in the first inning gave the Lakers a 1-0 lead, but with two outs and no one on in the third, North erupted for three unearned runs, with the big blow a two-run double by Ladd, the cleanup hitter.
North tacked on four more runs in the fourth for a 7-1 lead.
"They started to get patient with her and wait to swing in favorable counts," Pina said of Peterson, who was 11-0 with a 1.45 ERA coming into the week. "Their patience definitely paid off. And we had some miscues in the field that gave them extra outs, and they continued to hit after we gave them extra outs. I was very, very impressed with the way they hit the ball through the lineup today."
Silver Lake did have a route back into the game, though, as freshman first baseman Madyson Bryan (2-for-3) launched a grand slam over the fence in left-center in the bottom of the fourth to shave the deficit to 7-5.
"She is a freshman in name only," Pina said. "Everything else she does, she plays like an upperclassman. She comes up big like an upperclassman. She's going to be a fun, fun player to watch for three more years."
Bryan's blast obviously energized the Lakers.
"We were in it," said sophomore catcher Nina O'Neil, who was 2-for-2 with a pair of walks. "That should have gotten us back in it, but they came right back. Nothing you can do about that."
North responded immediately to Bryan's slam by scoring twice in the fifth to push the lead to 9-5. The Eagles never really stopped, adding five runs in the sixth and three more in the seventh.
"It was a very good hit," Carafoli said of Bryan's home run. "We all (agreed on that). But we knew we just had to shake it off and not pay any attention to it. We just had to keep working hard."
Said Pina: "(North is) a team that thrives off momentum. Once they get some momentum they're a very difficult team to beat. And they proved that today."
Silver Lake has been tough to beat, too, and will be going forward. It was a rough day for Peterson, but she figures to bounce back.
"She's got a lot to offer," O'Neil said of the senior captain. "She has a lot of pitches, she really knows what she's doing. They were just squaring it up (today)."
Silver Lake can only hope to make it a best-of-three against North with the final game a Division 2 playoff matchup.
"There could be" another game looming, Banzi said. "You never know."
Said Pina: "If there's a chance of us playing them again, we probably will. We're two very good teams that are pretty comparable strength-wise. They got the better of us today."
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Plymouth North softball avenges lone loss by beating Silver Lake, 17-5
