Mounties are climbing
Mount eyes No. 2 seed after latest softball win
WOONSOCKET — When Westerly’s Victoria Carreiro smashed an inside-the-park home run to right field Monday, Mount St. Charles senior pitcher Taylor Newcomb was likely annoyed by the lack of an outfield fence.
But, when Mount senior Emily D’Abrosca caught a ball off the bat of Meg Albomonti that would’ve been out of any park in the Blackstone Valley not named Tucker Field to end the fifth inning, Newcomb walked off the field happy that a temporary fence wasn’t installed.
“All the years I’ve been coaching here, we’ve never had a fence and we always call it home-field advantage,” Mount coach Cliff Matthews said. “There are occasions when it hurts us, but my attitude is we always try to coach defense, and not having a fence gives our outfielders a chance to run under the ball.”
D’Abrosca’s catch preserved the Mounties’ tenuous one-run lead headed into the bottom of the fifth inning. The Mounties blew the game open in the sixth inning thanks to runs from Shea Kelliher, Marissa Santoro and courtesy runner Isabella Nadeau to earn a 7-3 Division II win,
Mount St. Charles (13-3 Division II) can clinch the No. 2 seed with a victory over struggling Narragansett Wednesday at Mount. Monday, the Mounties received a pair of runs scored and a pair of RBIs from Santoro, while Kelliher reached base twice and scored twice.
Westerly (10-6 Division I) could return to Woonsocket in a week for a Division II quarterfinal contest. Veteran Westerly coach Chris Luppe knows if his side is to make a trip to Rhode Island College, they can’t make any mistakes against a Mount team with seven seniors in its lineup.
“Mount is clearly one of the top teams in the division and they’re going to give any team trouble,” Luppe said. “You have to play seven innings of mistake-free ball to beat them. If you make any mistakes, they’re going to capitalize on them. The top of our order was on today, but we need to get something out of the bottom of our order.”
Matthews, whose team could still mathematically catch North Smithfield for the No. 1 seed, viewed Monday’s game as a playoff contest.
“We’re doing everything right on both sides of the ball and I like the way we’re playing,” Matthews said. “We figured this was going to be a playoff game. We were anticipating a playoff-caliber game and that’s exactly what we got. We’ve been playing some weaker competition lately, so we needed to step up the intensity.”
Newcomb and her counterpart, senior Jenna Bowdy, struggled in the opening inning. The Mount senior gave up a leadoff walk to Carreiro and, after the junior stole second, Albamonti lined an RBI single to center. Albamonti scored later in the inning on a ground out by Alex Mitchell.
The senior settled down after the opening inning. Newcomb wound up allowing just four hits and two walks while striking out nine Bulldogs to pick up the victory.
Bowdy allowed D’Abrosca (walk), Kelliher (single), Santoro (RBI single), Sky O’Connell (walk) and Newcomb (two-run single) to reach base before recording an out. The righty eventually stranded a pair of Mounties. She only allowed one run over the next four innings.
“She started hitting her spots much better as the game went on and she mixed in some of her offspeed stuff later on,” Luppe said. “She kept them a little off-balance. After allowing the first five to reach base, some people would’ve really struggled, but she settled down.”
Carreiro tied the game in the third with her homer, but the Mounties grabbed the lead for good in the fourth when Sophia Monti (3-for-3) started the inning with a single. Monti advanced to third on a very close play that Luppe argued before scoring on a Santoro ground out.
“We got away with a mistake on the bases and I let her know that,” Matthews said.
The Mounties tacked on three more runs – two of which were unearned – in the sixth inning. Matthews said his team is batting .406 this season, so he’s confident his squad will provide Newcomb with enough offense to make a push for Rhode Island College in early June.
“The good thing about this team is anyone can hit on any day because these kids are all good hitters,” Matthews said. “Someone is going to hit somewhere and today it was our No. 9 hitter (Monti).”