Saints sink Burrillville
St. Raphael takes advantage of Burrillville mistakes
St. Raphael’s Taylor Moreau, right, homered to help her team knock off the 7-5 Broncos, 14-1.
BURRILLVILLE — St. Raphael softball coach Ron LaBree knows the formula for winning a Division II title doesn’t include claiming the regular-season title.
When the Saints won the D-II title in 2015, Kaylee Sylvestre, Kamryn LaBree and the Saints were the No. 3 seed on their side of the bracket. The Saints still battled their way past four higher-seeded teams to claim the title.
LaBree believes this season’s edition of Saints also has a chance to make a run to Rhode Island College. After they were decimated by Mount St. Charles three weeks ago, the Saints figured out what they needed to do to compete with the best teams in the division.
Since that ugly afternoon at the Hank Soar Complex, the Saints have won five of their last six contests, including Friday afternoon’s Valley clash with Burrillville.
The Saints received a two-run home run and three runs scored from Taylor Moreau and three RBIs and a pair of runs scored from Ashley Bullen to earn a 14-1 five-inning victory over the talented Broncos.
‘We all came together as a team and it’s all clicking from the infield to the outfield and the pitching,” Moreau said. “I would say after the Mount St. Charles game we really started communicating and talking and that’s made a big difference.”
“We can play with anyone. We were with (first-place) North Smithfield the whole way and only lost 7-5,” LaBree said. “We’re right there and I keep telling them that. I think they’re starting to believe that and they’re starting to realize that if they keep putting in the hard work, we’re going to get there. Playing good defense, getting solid hitting and pitching won it for us in 2015. That’s what will win it in 2017.”
St. Raphael (9-3 Division II) likely can’t catch the one-loss Northmen for the top seed in the division, but the Saints are currently tied with Johnston and Mount St. Charles for second place. Of course, the Saints lost to both teams.
Friday, sophomore Sydney Charette delivered another superb performance. The righty allowed just three hits and an unearned run in five innings of work. LaBree was happy to end the game two innings early because his ace is currently dealing with a nagging back injury.
“She’s doing a great job and she’s dealing with back problems right now,” LaBree said of Charette. “She’s been to a chiropractor twice and she ices it after every game. She gets knots in her back. I wanted us to get done early against Prout and we ended up going 10 innings, so to only go five in this one was huge.”
Burrillville (7-5 Division II) clinched a playoff berth with an upset win over Portsmouth on Thursday. Friday’s game was the third in three days, so coach Bill Lacey gave senior Sam Bousquet a break from the circle. Rebecca Arndt earned the start and deserved a better fate.
Arndt didn’t give up a hit in the opening inning, but Bullen marched her way home thanks to a walk, a sacrifice bunt, a wild pitch and a ground out. The Broncos committed four errors behind the sophomore in the second inning and the visitors took advantage by scoring 11 unearned runs.
“Becca was throwing strikes and that’s what both of our pitchers have done all year,” Lacey said. “For the most part, we’ve played defense behind our pitchers and made the big play when we need to. I just told them that at some point in that inning when they already had five or six runs, someone needed to make a play to get us out of that inning.”
Even though Friday’s loss takes some of the shine off an impressive week, the reality for Lacey is that his squad is headed to the playoffs with a number of freshmen in the lineup and a pitcher who started the season as a shortstop.
“Now that we’ve reached the playoffs, we can move on to our next goal,” Lacey said. “Our second goal is to get to eight wins and that gives us a better record than last year. Our goal after that is to get nine wins and that will put us over .500. We don’t do that often in this program.”
After Bullen opened the scoring in the first, the Broncos wasted a Bousquet double and an Ally Simpson single. The only run the home side scored came in the second when Dezerae Parkhurst scored on a ground out.
By that time, however, the Saints were already up 12 runs. Moreau and Camielle Keith both scored twice in the second inning, while Cassandra Yanny, Bullen, Taylor Troiano and Moreau all had RBIs.
Moreau’s biggest hit of the afternoon came in the next inning when she crushed the first pitch she saw from Bousquet over the center-field fence for a two-run home run to finish the scoring.
“I was just thinking that it was a new pitcher and I just made contact and hoped for the best,” Moreau. “It feels good to hit one out. Our field is a men’s field, so it was good to put one out.”
The Broncos are back home Monday against Westerly, while the Saints get a deserved break before they make the long trip to Cimalore Field to take on the Bulldogs Wednesday afternoon.
“The difference at the end of the season is going to be consistency,” LaBree said. “You have to be consistent through out the playoffs. In 2015, we went 5-0 in the playoffs. We hit, we played defense and we had the pitching. You have to be able to do it all. I’m not looking ahead. If we work hard, it will all work out.” St. Raphael 1(11)2 00 - 14 13 3 Burrillville 010 00 – 1 3 4 Sydney Charette and Sailor Costa; Rebecca Arndt, Sam Bousquet (3) and Maddie McCutcheon. 2B – SRA, Ashley Bullen; B, Bousquet, Alyssa Simpson; HR – SRA, Taylor Moreau.