Moving on
Bilodeau’s no-hitter helps La Plata blank Patuxent
On a day when it actually had to travel to play a home playoff game, the La Plata High School softball team defeated Patuxent 10-0 in five innings on Monday afternoon in a Class 2A South Region Section I semifinal game.
La Plata (13-6 overall) scored two runs in the bottom of the first inning, added five more in the third and three more in the fourth and Warriors ace Alyssa Bilodeau blanked the youthful Panthers on two walks in a no-hitter that hardly yielded a celebration at the College of Southern Maryland’s La Plata campus. In fact, the Warriors postgame centered on the four seniors whose previously scheduled senior-day celebrations were nixed by inclement weather.
“We were hoping to have our senior day last week, but we waited until today because of the weather,” said Warriors third baseman Erica Cox, who went 1 for 2 plus a walk and scored once and plans to play next season at CSM. “We kept getting rained out, so we just decided to wait until today for our senior game. Alyssa pitched well and we backed her up.”
Bilodeau walked Patuxent leadoff batter Kelsey Sears to start the game and later issued a free pass to Katie Briggs with one out in the second, but the Salisbury University recruit retired
the last 11 Panthers to preserve the no-hitter. Bilodeau fanned eight batters Monday and got Emily Long in the fourth looking despite falling behind her 3 balls, no strikes.
La Plata (13-6 overall), the top seed in the section, advances to Wednesday’s sectional final scheduled for 4 p.m. on its home field versus third-seeded Calvert. The Cavaliers blanked second-seeded Lackey 7-0 in another Monday section semifinal.
“I thought my curveball was working pretty well today,” Bilodeau said. “I was able to get ahead of most of the hitters. Once we scored some runs early that allowed me to relax a little bit. We had that close game against Northern [in the SMAC championship]
and they beat us on a bloop single with two outs. But that game gave us the confidence we needed to get through our region.”
Patuxent (7-13) arrived with a very youthful squad of three juniors, four sophomores and seven freshmen and zero seniors. The Panthers’ youthfulness showed at times as the Warriors scored at least one unearned run in the first, third and fourth innings. But longtime head coach Jen Bruno was hardly disappointed with the Panthers performance.
“La Plata has a really good team and they hit the ball today,” Bruno said. “They probably had more hits than runs today and I think we only made two errors. I’m proud of these girls. I have seven freshmen and some of them had never played softball before this season. We were just very young this year.”
La Plata sophomore Devin Ruble started a two-out rally in the first with a single, took second on a passed ball then scored on a single by Andie Kline, another Warriors senior who plans to play for CSM next spring. Kline (3 for 3) had taken second on the throw home and then scored on a single by Ava Krahling.
La Plata broke the game open by scoring five runs on three hits and four Patuxent errors in the third. Hannah Kraft and Cox both walked to start the inning and later Kline and Kelsey Hanks had clean singles and Bilodeau helped her own cause with a two-run double.
La Plata reached the mercy-rule margin by scoring three times in the fourth. Cox had a one-out single and Kline added another single with two outs and took second on a throw intended to get Cox at third. Krahling followed with a two-run single to center that capped a four-RBI day and she later scored on an error by Sears at shortstop.
“We definitely think that we can go a long way in the region,” Kline said. “When Alyssa pitches the way she did today and we hit the ball and play defense like we did today, then we can definitely make it to states this year.”