NORTHWOOD – Three-for-4 with a home run and four RBIs at the plate. A complete game in the circle. Coe-Brown senior Madison DeCota had her fingerprints all over the Bears’ 6-4 softball victory at home against John Stark on Wednesday afternoon.
Trailing 2-0 after Generals freshman Savannah Chapman launched a two-run home run over the center-field fence in the second inning, the Bears capitalized in the third. Kylie Bieniek reached on an error, Audrey Perron and Emma Broadstone both singled and Haile Comeau drove in Bieniek on a sacrifice fly. DeCota then hammered a three-run homer to left to put Coe-Brown ahead, 4-2.
John Stark tied the score once again in the fourth: A single to center off the bat of Chapman drove home Olivia Hargreaves, and a single from Ruby Dykstra drove home Chapman to tie the game. The Bears retook the lead, 5-4, in the bottom of the inning thanks to an RBI single to left from DeCota and never looked back.
In a rematch of last year’s Division II championship game, the contest delivered with back-and-forth action, timely hitting and solid pitching, along with three noteworthy developments:
The Bears’ offense executed well against the 2022 D-II pitcher of the year: Hargreaves, last year’s top pitcher in the division, didn’t throw her best game on Wednesday, allowing six runs (five earned) on 11 hits, walking two and striking out nine across six innings. But she also pitched 15 innings in Monday’s 11-2 win over Hollis-Brookline and threw 191 pitches, according to head coach Denis Kolehmainen, so fatigue likely played a role.
Still, Coe-Brown put together solid at bats, as evidenced by the 11 hits.
“She is great,” Bears head coach Dave Allis said of Hargreaves. “We have a game plan, and we just try to stick to it. And if she beats us, then she beats us. There’s no shame in getting beat by a great pitcher. That’s our mentality at the plate, so that’s what we try to stick to.”
Asked what that mentality is, Allis remained coy, knowing his team could face her again in the playoffs.
“Without giving trade secrets away, we have a game plan that we stick to, so when the girls go up there, they have to try to stay focused and watch out for certain pitches that she throws,” he said. “I’ll keep that stuff out of the paper.”
“Resiliency” the word of the day: Behind by two runs early in the game and then tied 4-4, the Bears struck back both times the Generals threw a punch.
Coe-Brown catcher Courtney Thomas exited the game after taking a foul tip off her mask, requiring Allis to shift around the defense quite a bit. Against a team of John Stark’s caliber, staying the course was no small feat.
“Of course, we faced them in the championship last year, so this is one of those games where I’m sure they wanted it,” Allis said of his team. “I’m really proud of the girls for fighting back after that 2-0 deficit, then our catcher got dinged up. We had to shift some players around, and everybody did their job. I guess resiliency would be the word for the day.”
Now 6-0 on the season, the Bears are in strong shape but still have work to do. Allis highlighted a few of their defensive miscues on Wednesday that need to be cleaned up moving forward.
“There were pretty routine defensive plays that I think maybe we just lost a little focus on,” he said. “I can’t explain it because we don’t usually make those. … We’ll work on those specific plays and hopefully get them next time.”
Several positives shined through for John Stark despite the loss: Hoping for revenge against the defending D-II champs, the Generals’ defense ultimately did them in, committing four errors.
But the offense strung together productive at bats against DeCota.
“I thought we played well,” Kolehmainen said. “We hit the ball well. We weren’t fooled all the time. (DeCota) had a nice changeup that took us off-guard a few times, but we got the bat on the ball.”
The Generals fell to 4-2 with the loss but look to be a top team come playoff time. After all, John Stark’s six opponents so far this year have a combined record of 22-10, so winning four out of those six matchups should be an encouraging sign for things to come in the final six weeks of the season.
“I think we’re doing well,” Kolehmainen said. “We’ve played every top-five team, so I think we’re in good shape.”