PLYMOUTH – His team was down by a run and running out of innings against a stifling pitcher. But Franklin softball Coach Skip DuBois’s finger was far from the panic button.
“We’ve got four or five kids that are all batting .400 and up. And I know inside we have the ability to generate, maybe not score five or six runs, but get one run,” he said. “I was really, I won’t say confident, but I really felt that there was a good chance we could tie this game up.”
He added a caveat.
“Of course, once you tie it up,” he said, “what happens beyond that, it becomes a new ball game.”
The Golden Tornadoes were ready for both challenges. Hailey Haskins hit a game-tying RBI double in the fifth and Anna Doherty doubled and scored on an error in the eighth, lifting second-seeded Franklin to a 3-2 win over No. 6 Berlin in eight innings at Plymouth State University and a spot in the Division III championship game.
The Tornadoes (18-1) took a 1-0 lead in the first but saw their dream season suddenly threatened when Berlin’s Shaeleigh Valliere drilled a two-run shot over the left-field wall in the top of the fourth. Franklin answered an inning and a half later, however, when Haskins’s double scored Anna Sylvestre to knot the game at 2.
Franklin’s Kaylee Marshe and Berlin’s Jen Landers battled from there, navigating out of jams to keep the game tied – Landers escaping that fifth when Doherty, one of Franklin’s best hitters, popped up, a missed chance DuBois knew bothered his star catcher.
“She’s used to hitting the ball hard. She was down a bit,” DuBois said of Doherty, whom he lets call the pitches. “And we had a little talk and I told her ‘Right now, we don’t need your bat. We need your mind and your leadership. You’re behind the plate, you need to focus on that. The rest will come.’ ”
Right away, in fact. Doherty came to the plate again in the eighth and nearly ended the game with one swing, hammering a first-pitch drive that hit the right-field wall on the fly for a one-out double.
“I definitely felt there was a lot of pressure on my shoulders,” she said. “I definitely felt excited (after the hit). … I trusted my team to carry us through this game.”
Berlin pitched around Hanne Nichols, who drove in Rachael Capri with a single for the first run of the game, and Breanna Styles grounded the next pitch to second base. Berlin’s Chelsey Caron tagged Nichols but threw wildly looking for the double play, and as the ball sailed into foul territory, DuBois waved Doherty home.
The Franklin fans roared in anticipation, but Doherty knew the run was far from a done deal.
“Oh, God, no. I’m not that fast, that’s one thing,” she said. “So when my coach was sending me, my heart was beating pretty fast.”
She slid home, but there wasn’t a play, and Doherty was soon surrounded by jubilant teammates.
“This happened to be as the result of an error, but you’ve got to put yourself in the situation for that error to have a result,” DuBois said. “And we did. We put ourselves in that situation.”
The Tornadoes had to get to extras first, and Haskins made sure they got there. No. 9 hitter Sylvestre singled up the middle to start the fifth, and Capri – who homered against Berlin in the regular season – dropped her second sacrifice bunt of the game to put the runner in scoring position.
“I’m so proud of that,” DuBois said. “Every time we needed a bunt to advance the runner, everybody laid it down. It was textbook.”
Haskins was up next and the shortstop unloaded, driving a pitch to deep left-center field to score Sylvestre. It was a breakthrough at last after Franklin had squandered runners in scoring position in the third and fourth innings, but Haskins had no doubt her team would eventually get the big hit.
“No, never,” she said. “I just know we have a good pitcher, we have a good defense, and I know that we’re going to be able to pull it through. We always come back. Always.”
Both teams had chances at victory late, with Franklin getting a runner to third with two outs in the sixth and Berlin getting back-to-back singles in the seventh before a ground ball off a runner’s foot ended the threat.
That was the last time the Mountaineers threatened against Marshe, who went all eight innings, striking out 11 and pitching around seven hits, not allowing any runners to cross home after Valliere’s shot to left field.
“Kaylee has one of the most deceptive pitches,” DuBois said. “It’s going in the air, a kid swings and you don’t understand, you swear the bat went right through the ball.”
Nichols (single, double) was the only Tornadoes player with multiple hits against Landers, who struck out four and was at her best in tight spots.
“Not only was she throwing good speed, she had a good changeup early in the game,” DuBois said. “She went away from it, which surprised me.”
The Tornadoes were ready to take advantage, sealing a spot in the championship they had seem aligned for from the beginning of the year.
“It’s definitely crazy after the way we started and the expectations that everyone had,” Doherty said. “We came together as a team and we really pulled through.”
(Drew Bonifant can be reached at 369-3340, abonifant@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @dbonifant)