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Softball team
pitcher hurt
The Woodstock Academy Centaurs picked up a win over Fryeburg, Maine, April 16.
But it was a costly one.
The Centaurs rallied in the fifth inning for four runs that helped them to a 7-3 win over their visitors from the north at Roseland Park.
Unfortunately, they lost top pitcher Mackenzie Leveille in the process.
Leveille suffered an ankle sprain when she stepped on home plate while scoring and slipped, landing awkwardly.
“It’s going to hurt for a couple of weeks, we will see how it goes. Luckily, she is not in a big foot boot. When I see foot boot, I know we’re in trouble. She’s in a little makeshift thing so maybe a week or two and we will see what happens,” said Woodstock Academy coach Jason Gerum. “It’s part of the game. The nice thing was we still got a win.”
When Leveille left the game, the Centaurs were trailing, 3-2.
That changed in the fifth inning.
Maia Corrado got it started when she hit a ball sharply to first with the bases loaded.
Hannah Burgess (2-for-4, 1 RBI) scored on that error and then another error on the same play allowed both Julianna Nuttall and Hannah Chubbuck to score to put the Centaurs in the lead for good.
Amanda Bond then knocked in Corrado to give the Centaurs the 6-3 lead.
Megan Preston also knocked in a run for the Centaurs and also had to take over in the circle.
Preston went five innings, gave up only four hits and failed to yield a run to pick up the win.
“I had barely thrown her in weeks,” Gerum said. “She came in and battled a very good team. Megan showed us that we’re still going to be alright.”
Gerum took the blame for the sluggish bats to start.
He gave the Centaurs the weekend prior off after their game with Stonington was washed out.
“The kid’s arms were hurting and hanging and, it was unfortunate with the storm (on Monday). We were going to do batting practice inside and we lost power in the gym. They went three days with nothing and they looked in the (batter’s) box that they were a team that had done nothing in a few days. When they started to warm up, they stated to hit the ball like they have been.”
Preston not only had to pitch the remainder of the Fryeburg game, she also was enlisted for the second part of the morning/afternoon doubleheader.
Preston pitched a shutout through the first four innings but gave up a run in the fifth and four more in the sixth and the Centaurs fell, 5-4.
“I think Meg got a little tired,” Gerum said. “They have good players. She was pitching her second game of the day and hadn’t pitched in a few weeks really. That’s not easy. You can see she was getting a little tired, left the ball up a little and they were able to string some hits together.”
Woodstock Academy (0-3 Eastern Connecticut Conference Div. I) took the early lead on an RBI single by Chubbuck (3-for-4) in the first inning.
Chubbuck raised her average to .600 on the season with the three hits.
“I’ve always had really good eye-hand coordination and it’s easy for me to just see the ball and hit it. I swing and it goes somewhere,” Chubbuck said.
“She is just a great contact hitter,” Gerum said of his first baseman. “We teach line-drive hitting and she is a line-drive hitter. It’s just artwork. It’s the same line drive no matter where it is in the zone. She has a stone face. She looks like she is sleeping half the time, but she is just very serious and unassuming. She’s been doing this for years for us. She is just very consistent.”
Chubbuck’s single scored Burgess.
The shortstop had three hits against the Vikings and was hitting .706 for the season.
“I always see Hannah on the bases and I know that she is probably going to get in if I make contact,” Chubbuck said.
Heather Converse made it 2-0 with a sacrifice fly in the fourth.
The Vikings cut that lead in half in the fifth and scored four more times in the sixth to take the lead.
Corrado and Converse had RBI singles in the sixth but the Centaurs fell short.
“A one-run loss to a good team with the circumstances we had, we did alright,” Gerum said.
But one-run losses can become frustrating when they are the rule rather than the exception.
April 18, the Centaurs fell to Plainfield, 6-5, to fall to 2-4 on the season.
Three of those four losses have been by one run..
“We’re right there,” the Woodstock Academy coach said. “I will take a bunch of one-run games against really good teams over being mercied or stuff that we have been through here for years. We’ve come a long way. They do start to hurt a little because we are right there, but I can’t complain.”
The Centaurs did open a 5-4 lead over the Panthers in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Trailing 4-3, Converse (2-for-2, 2 RBIs) doubled to right field and went to third on a ground out.
The senior tied the game when Maria Scandalito singled to right.
Scandalito advanced to second on an error on the play and scored when Bond reached on an error to give the Centaurs the lead.
They wouldn’t enjoy it for long.
Kristen Rider got ahold of a 1-1 pitch from Preston and hit it over the fence and off the scoreboard in left field for the game-tying home run.
It was the third homer of the game for the Panthers (5-3).
Kacee Hirst and Ryley Meyers both went deep to center earlier in the game for Plainfield.
“We play them every year, sometimes, twice a year and I know the kids. I’ve seen them hit the ball well for years. I knew they had good power and they also hit well five-through-seven (in the batting order). You have to just try and get through. It’s a grind playing them,” Gerum said.
Winning pitcher Mackenzie Peters followed the Rider homer with a sharp line drive past third for a single. She stole second, went to third on an error and scored on a fielder’s choice by Allison Conger to account for the game-winning run.
Peters did allow Burgess (3-for-4) an infield single in the bottom of the seventh, but settled down to get the final outs on a strikeout and a fly ball.
“You know Plainfield is going to get hits and you have to make plays and play great defense and we did. We didn’t make any errors so we played great ‘D’ and played a great softball game. It’s tough to hold those bats off,” Gerum said.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy
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