MARBLEHEAD — Johnny Gold says softball’s a different game than baseball. And Friday, his Marblehead team demonstrated how.
“It’s not all home runs and slugging,” he said. “It’s putting the ball in play. That’s what I encourage the kids to do. Put the ball in play. Things happen.”
They certainly did for the Magicians. They parlayed a seven-run inning into an 8-3 win over St. Mary’s with a number of singles and doubles at opportune moments.
The Spartans, meanwhile, put two balls out of the middle school field but, as coach Paige Licata acknowledged, they didn’t do much of anything else offensively.
“The problem,” said Gold, “is that all these girls, their fathers played baseball, so they come here with the bats back (like they’re going to try for home runs). We tell them ‘no, just hit the ball. Put it in play’.”
The game started out as if one run might just do it.
“That’s what I thought,” said Gold. “I thought it was going to be 1-0, 2-1.”
That’s because neither team got anything going in the first three innings. St. Mary’s Angelina Pepe was strong, and Marblehead’s Charlotte Plakans was just as tough to hit.
“She didn’t have her best stuff, but she battled,” said Gold.
Licata, meanwhile, saw what happened in the fourth inning coming.
“I had a feeling,” she said. “Our last game, we came out against Austin Prep strong. Today, I felt as if we were all waiting for someone else to get the big hit — the grand slam homer.”
In the bottom of the fourth, the Magicians followed their coach’s advice and put the ball in play. Plakans started it off with a single, and went to third on Bel Sogoloff’s base hit. Sammi Treff followed with a double, scoring both runs, and she took third on an overthrow in attempt to nail Sogoloff at the plate.
Treff then scored on Hanna Guthrie’s single. Jole Quintana hit another single and Frances Park walked to load the bases.
Pepe got the second out by fanning Mercedes Pelletier, but Sophie Vener got another base hit that scored both Guthrie and Quintana.
Plakans’ second hit of the inning scored the final two runs.
St. Mary’s got two of those runs back in the top of the fifth when Marina DiBiasio hit a towering fly ball that just cleared the fence in left field, with Lily Newhall (walk) scoring ahead of her.
However, Marblehead came back to score another run in the bottom of the inning when Maddie Ernst walked, and scored on Quintana’s single. A second St. Mary’s home run — this one a shot by catcher Jordan Sullivan — gave the Spartans their third run.
The win raises Marblehead’s record to 9-1 and clinched a state tournament berth for the Magicians.
“We played good defense, got some timely hitting, and did it on a day when our pitcher wasn’t at her best,” Gold said. “She’s been awesome.
I’m proud of them.”
St. Mary’s falls to 4-5.
