HIGH SCHOOL SOFTBALL Tiverton hands Pawtucket its first loss

PAWTUCKET — Abby DeMello’s teammates gave her the best birthday present a pitcher could ever ask for. Run support.

The Tiverton softball team was a little intimidated heading into Tuesday’s game with undefeated Pawtucket, but all it took were a few swings to erase that feeling. The Tigers took advantage of mistakes, strung together hits and gave DeMello more than enough help. The senior needed her A-game up against Division III’s best pitcher and brought it as Tiverton took down the Shea-Tolman co-op team, 5-1.

“Last year we kind of struggled with them,” DeMello said. “We got to mess up their undefeated season, so this is pretty good.”

“We’re feeling pretty hyped right now,” Tiverton’s Lia Doster said. “We were a little worried about the hitting, but we got here and we were hyped.”

Tiverton lost in the Division III final last spring and had high hopes coming into this season. But it opened the season with a surprising loss to Cranston East. The Tigers followed it with wins over Davies and Exeter-West Greenwich, but knew they were going to have their hands full on Tuesday with Pawtucket and its ace, Janayah Gordon.

On the trip to Max Read Field, there was concern about getting runs up on the board. Tiverton hadn’t seen a pitcher with Gordon’s velocity but, after the

Abby DeMello pitched Tiverton past Pawtucket and showed that the Tigers are capable of winning the D-III title this spring.

first trip through the order, the entire team realized it could get bat on ball. So that’s what the Tigers did. Tiverton took advantage of a Pawtucket miscue in the third to score the game’s first run. Tied at 1 heading to the fifth, Doster came up with the first big swing of the game, ripping an RBI triple that scored Brooke Sowa. Two batters later, Carlie Martin hit a double that scored Doster for a 3-1 lead.

“Once you see her and you have that positive energy, you’re able to get a hold of it,” Doster said. “Once people start hitting, everyone starts hitting.”

With confidence booming, and DeMello dealing, Tiverton added to the lead in the sixth when Doster hit a tworun single that plated Sowa and Sadie Pickering.

“When we start off with runs like that, we get more energy and we’re not down on ourselves,” DeMello said. “It just makes us play better the rest of the game.”

The insurance runs were nice, but not necessary with DeMello.

On the day before her birthday, DeMello dealt. She mixed pitches with ease and never let the idea of trying to trade zeroes with Gordon get into her head. It was step into the circle and just pitch.

The closest thing to trouble DeMello ran into came in the fourth, when Gordon ripped a double and Laurel Christian followed with one of her own two batters later that tied the score at one. It was a spot that could have gotten the most of DeMello, but she managed to get a strikeout to end the threat.

She was near spotless the rest of the game, as Pawtucket’s lone baserunner over the final three innings came on an error.

“You just go to the next batter,” DeMello said, “because there’s nothing you can do about it.”

The loss was the first of the season for Pawtucket, which didn’t do itself many favors with its defense. Gordon was disappointed with her own performance — which included two errors — but knows a game like this is something her Sholman — their preferred moniker — teammates can bounce back from.

“It’s just a tough game,” Gordon said. “It happened, it’s over and done with now so we’re going to move on and beat them the next time we see them.”

Gordon, who pitched Sholman to a title in her sophomore season, is shouldering quite the load this season. She knows there’s a lot resting on her arm and Gordon is holding herself to a standard a star pitcher should.

“I know without me it can be harder, so I always try my best to be my best,” Gordon said. “I try my hardest to take the weight off of them and put it on myself because I like working under pressure. It’s not new to me.”

For Tiverton, the win is a huge step in getting what it couldn’t last spring.

Losing the season opener was a shot to the Tigers’ confidence, but Tuesday’s win has them moving in the direction they want to go. If there were any questions about Tiverton’s chance of winning a Division III title, they were answered with the win and now the team must try to build off it.

“We might still be trying to figure out, but we’re using these games to see what we need to work on and what we need to do as a team,” DeMello said. “I feel like we can get there.”

“They’re a really good team. We faced a good team and we won,” Doster said. “I feel like now we have a lot more confidence and the win under our belt will help us for the rest of the season.”