The St. Paul and Holy Cross softball teams met on Saturday afternoon on the artificial turf of Joan Joyce Field in Waterbury. It may have been the lone field in the area that was dry at the time, given all of the rain that fell over the last few weeks.
The Falcons were able to pull away for a 10-4 victory over the Crusaders. St. Paul scored four runs in the top of the fourth inning to take a 6-4 lead, then put the game away with a run in the fifth and three runs in the sixth. The Falcons improved to 12-1 while the Crusaders dropped to 10-3.
“We constantly work on everything. We work on the hitting, and then like I said, that game against Wolcott, we beat them 11-7, but we made some errors and allowed them to come back in the game, so we’re working on defense, too,” St. Paul coach Gary Hovhanessian said. “We’re working on everything, baserunning, we work on baserunning. I talk to them about how in the state tournament, you might need to be in a 2-1 or 1-0 game. We work on bunting so that we make sure we don’t forget that we need to bunt sometimes.”
Basically, the Falcons are busy working on all aspects of the game. St. Paul doesn’t want a repeat of the first Seymour game, when the Falcons scored four times in the top of the seventh inning to take a four-run lead, only to watch the Wildcats tally five runs and steal the game 10-9.
“It’s one play, one inch, one this, one that,” Hovhanessian said.
Abby Poirot threw a complete game (six strikeouts), and she also recorded a triple, single, run scored and four RBI at the plate. Caleigh McDougall had three hits, three runs scored and an RBI while Carolyn Marchak added a double, a single, a run scored and an RBI.
Errors hurt Holy Cross in the loss. The Crusaders have had some hectic scheduling due to rainouts. Holy Cross has had three games called when it was already at the field, according to coach Meg Dwyer.
On Saturday, the Crusaders scored the game’s first two runs in the bottom of the first inning to claim a 2-0 lead. Lizzy Diorio drove in Hannah Brown (hit by pitch) and Allie Brown (bunt single) with a two-run single. Jenna Mowad drove in herself and Val Nobrega (walk) home with a two-run home run in the third inning. Holy Cross led 4-2 at that point, but the lead was short-lived.
Poirot’s bases-clearing triple in the fourth put St. Paul ahead 5-4, then the final run of the frame scored on an error. Katrina Roy’s RBI double in the fifth made the score 7-4. In the seventh, Janessa Gonzalez had a sacrifice fly, Poirot added an RBI single, and Ava Hampton brought home the game’s final run on a walk.
“They’re a very good team, and that’s the type of softball that we want to play against every chance we get,” Dwyer said of St. Paul. “We’re excited about seeing those areas we need to clean up, and we’ll improve every day, which is always our goal.”
A more normal schedule should help Holy Cross. The Crusaders have just one more makeup game — against Pomperaug — to get in.
“We’re going to get some practices in, the fields are ready for us to be on them,” Dwyer said. “We’re going to practice the little things, clean up our defense, and get our bats going.”
Gallery
Here are my photos from today’s game.