Thursday, May 1, 2008
By
Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer
BAYONNE – With
a senior-dominated lineup, the Holy Family Academy softball team
cruised through the regular racking up one blowout win after another,
but several defensive miscues led to its first loss of the season
last week against High Tech. Since then, the Falcons have had
nothing to do but practice and work on making sure that the meltdown
against High Tech never happens again.
The true test would
come in the Falcons’ next game, which also happened to be
their most important of the season. They were facing North Bergen
in a battle of the only two unbeaten teams in the HCIAA-Coviello
Division. Since it is the only meeting between the two teams in
the regular season and with Bayonne scoring a 3-1 win over St.
Dominic Academy, the winner of this game was going to earn the
top seed in the HCIAA-Coviello Division Tournament. The Falcons
took an early lead again as they did against High Tech. But this
time the ending was different as the Falcon defense rose to the
occasion.
Holy Family’s
Grace Keller manufactured a run on her own in the first inning.
She made sure it stood up with a consistent pitching performance.
Her defense played error-free ball behind her, including two nice
plays from second baseman Laney Fiuza as the Falcons made its
mark as the team to beat in the HCIAA-Coviello Division with a
5-0 win on Wednesday at Gorman Field in Bayonne.
“We were maybe
a little too confident and the loss to High Tech brought us back
down to earth,” said Keller. “We talked about the
High Tech game and we’ve focused that much more on not losing
again.”
Keller led off the
bottom of the first with a single and moved to second on a slap
hit by Fiuza. The senior then took off on a delayed steal for
third and the throw went into left field, allowing Keller to score
and the Falcons to strike first.
From there it was an
intriguing pitcher’s duel between Keller and North Bergen’s
Carla Arismendi. Keller, who has started since the first game
of her freshman year, retired 14 of the first 15 batters she faced
by changing speeds effectively.
The Bruins did not
know what to expect after having the luxury of program’s
all-time leader in wins and strikeouts and four-year starter,
Tiara Smith, depart to graduation. But Arismendi has filled the
void and proved she is already among the top pitchers in Hudson
County. The freshman had a stretch between first and fourth innings
where she retired 11 straight batters. But with one swing of the
bat, the Falcons got some cushion for Keller to work with.
Amanda Coletta slugged
an Arismendi fastball to right-center for a sure-fire triple.
The senior tried to score on the play and the throw had her beat
easily at the plate. But the ball was bobbled and Coletta snuck
in to give the Falcons a 2-0 lead.
“I had two strikes
on me already, so whatever pitch I got I was going to try and
make contact,” said Coletta. “We wanted this game
so bad. This shows that we can compete and beat any team in the
county if we’re playing our best.”
North Bergen had a
chance to get back in the game using some small ball to create
its only offensive threat of the game. Jocelyn Cabrera drew a
two-out walk followed by a single from Yamile Cano and an infield
single from Yelissa Mendoza to load the bases. That brought up
North Bergen’s fastest player, Ashley Heredia to the plate.
She hit a slow roller to second with Mendoza crossing over the
ball to make it an even tougher play for Fiuza. She fielded the
ball cleanly and tossed to first, getting Heredia in a bang-bang
play to end the inning.
“That play was
a big one,” said North Bergen Tom Eagleson. “We would
have scored a run on the play and I might have tried to score
the runner all the way from second base. The bottom line is that
we didn’t hit. (Grace) Keller pitched well and they played
great defense. You can’t beat the better teams on your schedule
without hitting the ball and we didn’t hit the ball well
enough to win today.”
Danielle Dundas put
the game away for Holy Family in the bottom of the sixth. Her
three-run blast to left-center scored Fiuza and Caitlin Veverka
to make it 5-0. Keller followed with a 1-2-3 seventh to complete
the shutout.
Keller allowed four
hits, walked one, struckout seven, and went 2-3 at the plate to
boost Holy Family (14-1, 12-0 HCIAA-Coviello) into sole possession
of first place in the league.
Arismendi took the
loss for North Bergen (11-4, 9-1 HCIAA-Coviello). She allowed
six hits, had six K’s, and did not walk a batter. Cano had
two hits for the Bruins, while Mendoza and Johanna Gonzalez had
the others.
The win put Holy Family
in good position to get back to the HCIAA-Coviello final, where
the Falcons will look to win their second title in three years.
“We want to win
the county title again and winning this game was a big step towards
our goal,” added Keller. “You can’t give a team
extra outs to work with and we didn’t give North Bergen
any. I’m confident with the defense behind me. They played
great today. I just had to hit my spots and let them do the work.
The High Tech loss was a wake-up call for us. We have only two
weeks before the (HCIAA-Coviello) playoffs and then the state
tournament starts. We want to go undefeated until then and take
it one game at a time."
TO
BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
|