Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on June 8, 2014
AMHERST — All season, if the Hampshire Regional softball team needed a key hit with Katie O’Connor at the plate, coach Brian McGan would call timeout, settle her down and she would deliver.
On Saturday, she walked up to the plate with only a walk in four at-bats. After a conference with McGan, she drove the second pitch down the left-field line to knock in the game-winning run in a 2-1 win over Frontier Regional in 10 innings in the Western Massachusetts Division 2 championship at UMass’ Sortino Field.
“For some reason, whenever I call time and talk to her, she gets a hit,” McGan said. “I don’t know why. It’s happen all year. Every time I call time, I just settle her down and I don’t know what it is, but she comes up with a base hit. It’s amazing to me.”
With the win, the top-seeded Raiders (19-3) move on to the state semifinal, where they will play Central champion Grafton (23-0) at Worcester State at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Grafton is the three-time CMass winner and two-time state champion. It beat Hampshire 3-2 in the state semifinals in 2012.
Frontier and Hampshire dueled for 2 hours, 30 minutes. In the 10th, Marissa Sarna-McCarthy singled up the middle and advanced to second on a walk to Danielle McGan. With one out, O’Connor drove in Sarna-McCarthy with the winning run.
“Both teams had a lot of guts,” McGan said. “Bottom line is we came up big when we had to. … These kids did not give up. Neither did Frontier. You can’t take nothing away from that team.”
Knocking the No. 3 Red Hawks (18-3) out of the postseason has become Hampshire’s specialty. The extra-winning decision marked the third time in five years the Raiders advanced over their former league foe. This season, the Raiders moved to the Suburban League out of the Franklin, making Saturday’s matchup a refreshing change as it wasn’t the third meeting of the year.
“I think maybe us not seeing them this year kind of helped us, because we went into it thinking that it was going to be a tough game and we had to put everything into it,” Raiders shortstop Savannah Waters said. “We didn’t take it for granted.”
Both coaches agreed the rivalry has cooled off and allowed both programs to mature into top-level teams.
“There isn’t a rivalry,” Red Hawks coach Carrie Fydenkevez said. “It’s just two great teams coming together and playing a great game. They happen to come up on top more times, but hopefully in the years to come we’ll change that.”
Leading the way for the Raiders from first pitch to last was sophomore pitcher Alexis Ferris. She fanned 17 and allowed one run on four hits, four walks and two hit batters in 10 innings.
“It was so intense. It feels so good now because we won,” Ferris said. “I just focused and spaced all people out (in the crowd) and was able to calm down after a while.”
Ferris came out shaky as six batters reached base and one scored through the first four innings. She settled down and struck out three in the fifth, one in the sixth and closed the game with two per inning from the seventh through 10th. After the fourth, she allowed single hits in the fifth and eighth.
“Ferris’ performance was great, unbelievable,” McGan said. “I asked her a few times if she was tired, she said no. And I said, ‘Well, I need a strikeout here.’ And she went up and she did it.”
“(Ferris) really kind of mowed us down the last few innings,” Fydenkevez said. “She’s a great pitcher and she’s only a sophomore, so we get to see her a couple more years.”
Behind Ferris, the Hampshire defense continued to control the Raiders’ style of play as it has all season.
“Our defense, all year not even just today, has been really, really strong,” Waters said. “It’s what’s been keeping us in games like this and the (semifinal) Southwick game, where it was a close game for the entire game. That’s what kept us in the game.”
In the third, it came up big and kept the game scoreless. Frontier’s Hannah Adams led off with a double and took third on a wild pitch.
In the following at-bat, Amanda Robinson flied out to right field, where O’Connor threw home to keep Adams from tagging up. McKayla Poissant ground out on a dribbler down the first-base line, but a quick check and fake throw by Sarna-McCarthy kept the runner at bay. A sharp grounder past Ferris could have been trouble, but Waters was on the move and fired to first to end the inning and the threat.
Four innings later, the Red Hawks turned their own defensive gems to keep the game alive.
With the game tied 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh, Taylor Boutwell singled and advance to second on Water’s single. Chelsea Moussette hit a grounder down the third-base line which was scooped by Gwen Thayer, who fired to Cassidy Ciesluk for the out at first. Ciesluk then turned toward home and beat Boutwell with a throw to Courtney-Shea Newsome to complete the double play and, momentarily, prevent the walk-off.
“That double-play was huge, as that’s not a play we made every day,” Fydenkevez said.
In the ninth, Thayer kept Boutwell to an infield single as she knocked down and fielded a line drive, but the throw wasn’t in time. Boutwell took second on Moussette’s single and was in scoring position as Anna Dziok hit a fly ball to the right-center field gap, but Adams made the catch on the run to end the inning.
Poissant gave up two runs on 12 hits and two walks in 91/3 innings, while going 2 for 3 with a walk and hit by pitch.
Waters finished 3 for 5. She single in the third, stole second and scored on Dziok’s single to go up 1-0.
“I was just focused on getting on base,” Water said. “I tired to put the nerves away and I just wanted to do it for me team. They have my back, I have their back.”
The Red Hawks retaliated and tied the game in the fourth. Ciesluk singled in Ali Hamelin, who had reached on a walk.
“It’s just one of those games that somebody had to win and somebody had to lose. Kind of glad it was us,” McGan said.
It was the final game for Frontier seniors Caitlyn Sullivan, Haley Dacyczyn, Katie Fournier, Thayer and Possiant.