Wednesday, May 26, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Taylor Boffalo crushing a second inning home run that provided the first Paramus run in a 12-1 win over Old Tappan in the North 1, Group 3 state sectional semifinals.

PARAMUS – During the course of a 30-game season softball coaches will give numerous speeches, hold outfield talks before and after games and speak thousands of words to their players to motivate, educate and communicate. Sometimes the talks are about softball, sometimes they about the game of life and sometimes those words really sink in.

Such was the case for Paramus assistant coach Marc Gregory. The words he spoke on Monday night were so obviously impactful that two of his players, in two separate interviews, were quick to point to them as an inspiration moments after the Spartans posted their most impressive win of the season on Tuesday, a 12-1 drubbing of Old Tappan in the semifinals in the North 1, Group 3 state sectional tournament.

“Coach Gregory said to us yesterday, ‘Imagine yourself being the hero of the game, being a champion, and his words really stuck with me,” said senior Alexis Yumul.

Nicole DeLisio drive in Old Tappan's lone run with a 5th-inning single.

Paramus shortstop Kristina Meier remembered it this way: “Coach Gregory told us yesterday to envision getting the big hit or making the big play. And all of us did that. We made it come true today.”

And last but not least, here is how Paramus head coach Brian Hay reacted Gregory’s speech, which evidently should be sent immediately to Cooperstown and the Library of Congress, or at least posted on YouTube.

“I talked to the kids for three hours in left field and he said a few words. I don’t get it,” said Hay. “Put his name in print and also write that Coach Hay should just be quiet and stand at third base.”

Hay’s comment, which has now been put in print as requested, was made with a smile, the kind that can only come after a playoff victory that lasted all of 4 2/3 innings. Gregory told all of his players to be heroes and all of them took him up on the offer, especially Meier, Yumul, Taylor Boffalo and Tori Feorenzo all played key roles.

Yumul, a senior who has battled a batting slump that saw her lose playing time early in the season and bat out of the No. 9 hole against Old Tappan, was 3-for-3 with 3 RBI and three runs scored.

Paramus senior Alexis Yumul broke out of a slump with a 3-for-3 day and 3 RBI batting out of the No. 9 spot in the batting order.

“I was just waiting for a game like this to come because I have been having a really tough time at the plate,” said Yumul. “Today was just a dream for me. I went 3-for-3 and finally I break out and I am just really excited that we came out with a win.”

Boffalo was also 3-for-3 and it was her second inning home run, a blast over the left field fence on the second pitch she saw, that set the tone and gave her team the lead for good.

“I try not to think. I just try to clear my mind and hit [the ball] where it is pitched and it has been working for me,” said Boffalo, Paramus’ No. 5 hitter, who added a lead off single in the fourth inning that led to a five-run rally and another that kicked off a six-run sixth. “After I hit the home run it really boosted my energy and I just wanted to keep contributing.”

Feorenzo, Paramus’s starting pitcher, worked out of a two-on, no-out situation in the top of the first inning. Consecutive throwing errors allowed Kelsey Morgan and Kirsten Savage, Old Tappan’s first and second hitters and fastest runners, to reach with no outs, but Feorenzo got a strike out, then fielded a comebacker and then got a called strike three to end the frame with no damage.

In a 12-1 win, a first inning escape act might not look so significant, but at the time it was huge, especially considering that Paramus had just a 1-0 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth.

Jen Capazzi going down to get one of Old Tappan's five hits.

“We let her down a little bit early with our defense, but she picked us up,” said Hay. “That is something that she has done all year long for us. She’s she kept us in ballgames all year long –2-1 games, 3-2 games – and to be quite honest, the kid doesn’t get the credit she deserves. Without her we might have 10 losses this year.”

Old Tappan’s defense was a step slow in the fourth inning as a single, two fielder’s choices and a bunt single by Lauren Holden loaded the bases with one out for Yumul, who came through with her second hit of the game, a two-run single up the middle that gave Paramus a 3-1 lead. Shayna Brock, Paramus’ slap hitting second baseman, chipped in with an RBI single and then scored when Meier hit the first of her two extra base hits, a triple to right center that put Paramus up 6-1.

The Spartans sent nine hitters to the plate in the fourth and that meant Boffalo led off again in the fifth and she provided her third hit of the game to get things going again. After a pop-up and a single by Alissa Miranda, Holden reached on an error and Yumul singled in her third run of the game.

A fly out and an error that allowed Brock to reach safely set the stage for Meier, a talented three-sport athlete, who came to the plate with the bases loaded. She unloaded on a pitch and deposited over the left field wall for a grand slam that invoked the mercy run and assured the third-seeded Spartans a spot in the section final opposite No. 1 Pascack Valley, a 1-0 winner over Sparta in Tuesday’s other semifinal.

Kristina Meier's two-out grand slam in the bottom of the fifth inning invoked the mercy rule and put Paramus in the section final against Pascack Valley.

In addition to a 2-for-4 day at the plate and her 5 RBI, Meier, Paramus’ shortstop also made two key defensive plays, one in the third when, with runners on first and second and with no other play on a groundball hit by Nicole DeLisio, she ran down a runner and won the race to third base with a lunging tag. In the fourth, she moved in behind Holden at third base, who was playing up against the slap-hitting Morgan, and threw out a runner at first base from deep in the hole.

“Defense wins games. They tell us that all the time, so defense comes first and then we started hitting well,” said Meier. “We have nothing else [to play for besides a sectional championship] so we have to play every game like it is our last and come out on top.”

Paramus wound up with 12 hits as a team of which 8 of them came from Boffalo, Yumul and Meier. Brock, Lexi Chambers, Miranda and Holden all had one apiece for the Spartans, who improved to 22-5 on the season. Old Tappan finished with five hits, one each by Savage, Mia Assante, Mary Wiley, DeLisio and Jen Capazzi. DeLisio drove in the lone run with a two-out single in the fifth.

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