Mounties make quick work of WW
Balanced offensive effort keys mercy-rule win over Wizards
WEST WARWICK — For the first time this season - and for the first time in a long time - the West Warwick softball team entered a game on a winning note. Fresh off a road victory against Mt. Hope on Tuesday, the Wizards looked to keep their newfound success going the following day when they hosted Mount St. Charles at Amby Smith Field. That plan was short-lived. In a game that got away from them early, the Wizards’ bats couldn’t keep up with the Mounties, falling a 14-2 in a contest that lasted just five innings. The loss dropped the team’s record to 1-7, while Mount improved to 5-3.
Starter Alexis Field struggled early, as the visitors managed to plate four runs in each of the first two frames, with the defense behind her not doing her any favors. She would wind up throwing four innings before Caitlin Gammelin and Mckenzi Swanson took over in the fifth.
“Alexis was kind of fighting herself early in the game. As the game progressed, she got into a rhythm, but we kind of dug ourselves in a hole early with the errors,” West Warwick head coach Brian Palazzo said.
Talia Williams plated the game’s first run on a base hit to center, scoring Kaitlyn D’Abroscsa to make it 1-0 just two batters into the game. A bases loaded walk to Kara McWhinnie followed by an infield single from MacKenzie Morin made it 4-0, as a miscommunication by the Wizard infielders allowed two additional runs to score.
Second baseman Emily Gil got one of those runs back for the home team on an RBI single in the bottom of the first, but Mount starter Victoria Young proved to be a difficult to hit.
The right hander turned in five innings of work, allowing just two runs while striking out six. She reached base safely in three of her four at bats, singling home a run in the top of the fifth to make it 11-1.
Mount coach Cliff Matthews was glad to get the victory, but felt that his team lacked energy.
“I’m happy to win, but I’ll be perfectly honest, the girls were sleeping on the bus on the way down here,” he said, a factor that translated into some inefficient fielding of their own on the day.
The Wizards helped them out with their own fielding errors.
“They made some miscues that I think opened the door for us. I don’t know that we were as dominant as the score would indicate. I think the game was closer than that,” Matthews said.
McWhinnie singled home a pair of runs in the top of the second to stretch the lead to 6-1 before an error in right by Kaitlin Parry on a fly ball off the bat of Kaylie Leclair enabled two more runs to cross the plate, making it 8-1.
From there, both pitchers settled in nicely, with Field at one point retiring seven hitters in a row, but with a busy schedule ahead later this week, Palazzo decided to replace her with Gammelin in the fifth. The move would not work out, with the visitors plating half a dozen runs in the inning to bust the game wide open at 14-1. Three of those runs came via bases loaded walks, as Swanson was eventually brought in to stop the bleeding.
“She and Alexis are really my two pitchers,” Palazzo said of Field and Swanson.
“The game just got to the point where we have two games coming up. We have a game tomorrow and a game Friday. I’m trying to hold Mckenzie back. Gammelin has given us good innings here and there throughout the season, so I just figured that she could hold that 8-1 game as it was, but it just wasn’t her day.”
With games against Middletown and Narragansett scheduled for the next two days, Palazzo feels that his team can pick up their second and possibly third win of the year if they get back to doing what they did against the Huskies on Tuesday.
“Those are two teams on our level. If we play a clean game the way we did yesterday, we should be good,” he said.
As for the Mounties, they’re back in action this afternoon against Portsmouth, a team they will be looking to get revenge against.
“Last year Portsmouth beat us. We can’t look beyond any teams, especially with such a young group,” Matthews said.