Oatley too much for No. 9 Mount
Lefty overpowers Mounties in 11-0 Division II victory
WAKEFIELD — Leading up to Wednesday’s playoff game between Prout and Mount St. Charles, Crusader coach Mike Traficante wasn’t sure he was even going to have ace starter Vanessa Oatley available.
The flamethrower hadn’t practiced since Thursday, beset by a high fever and head cold that was keeping her out of school and off the field.
Not only did Oatley end up making the start for Traficante, but she dominated the Mounties to guide her team to an 11-0 win.
The first 10 batters to stand in against her all struck out, and she pitched a total of six shutout innings to send Mount down into the loser’s bracket.
“There’s a big difference between the elite pitchers - and we have three of them in this division - and everybody else,” Mount coach Cliff Matthews said. “When you’re playing games instead of practicing, it’s difficult to prepare for that.”
The Mounties hadn’t seen Oatley since the first game of the season, a 12-0 loss that saw her carry a no-hitter into the fifth inning. This time around, Oatley was perfect through four frames.
The perfect game was broken up Riley Mulligan, who reached on an error, and the no-hitter would eventually be wiped away by a Kaitlyn D’Abrosca single.
“We had no book on them,” Matthews said of having not faced Prout in nearly two months. “We saw the girl from Scituate [pitcher Haley Venturini], they beat us 2-0. We played well against her. We saw [Barrington pitcher] Paige Concannon. They beat us 5-0, with four unearned runs. We were in both of those games. I thought we would have a chance of being in this game.”
After the first 10 batters failed to put the ball into play, Talia Williams broke up the string of strikeouts by grounding back to Oatley. Mulligan and Kaylie Leclair both reached on errors in the fifth, but were stranded when Oatley picked up her 12th strikeout.
“We struck out nine times in the first three innings,” Matthews said. “The first nine outs were strikeouts. We needed to gain some confidence. As the game progressed, we choked up with two strikes, tried to put the ball in play. It was somewhat effective.”
Prout put up seven quick runs on Mount, on seven hits. A two-run double by Victoria Caruolo was the catalyst in the five-run second inning, and the first two batters of the game both came home for early runs.
Mount started Marissa Tessier opposite Oatley, and the sophomore worked a clean third inning before being pulled for Victoria Young. Young allowed a single run in both of her first innings on the bump, before conceding the final two in the bottom of the sixth.
The damage could have been much worse, if not for steady pitching and strong defense. The Mount infield knocked down nearly everything that came their way, preventing extra bases and limiting run-scoring opportunities.
“Defensively, we made some outstanding plays in the field,” Matthews said. “We had a 6-3-5 double play. We haven’t turned one of those in a couple of years. We threw a kid out on a relay. We played good softball, it was just that we were outmatched by the pitching.
“Sometimes fastpitch is all about the pitching. They had a stud pitcher. It makes all the difference in the world.”
Prout will continue on in the winners’ bracket, taking on the winner of the Scituate-Rogers game. The Mounties will take on the loser of that game, in the losers’ bracket. If it’s Scituate, they will get another crack at Venturini. Otherwise, a rematch against a Rogers team that beat them 8-0 in the second game of the regular season.
“Our defense has turned the corner,” Matthews said. “We’re going to need to hit. We hit yesterday [against Westerly], hit the ball a ton.”