AUBURN – The St. Dom’s softball team may have won their Western Class C preliminary showdown against Wiscasset without help, but when the Redskins committed seven errors and their battery mishandled 10 balls (five wild pitches, four passed balls and an error), the question shifted from “How?” to “By how many?”
The Saints plated 11 runs on just six hits and Emily Goss fanned 10 batters and carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning, beating Wiscasset 11-2 on Tuesday.
Laura Robitzek had two of those six hits and scored two runs to help lead the offense, while the defense behind Goss didn’t commit an error all afternoon.
“We executed the short game and the running game well,” said St. Dom’s coach Dan Samson. “We ran well when we had to and made them make mistakes that we took advantage of.”
“We’d been playing good defense in the last few weeks,” said Wiscasset coach Al Gray, “but today we weren’t able to make the throws.”
At the plate, the Redskins had a hard time adjusting to Goss, who struck out three batters in the first inning and three more over the next two innings to take command of the game.
“When a girl got to third base in the first inning (after a girl was hit by a pitch and another walked, followed by a double steal) I felt like I was in a little bit of a pitching slump,” said Goss. “I knew I had to pull myself out of it in a hurry, and I did.”
Those were the only two baserunners the Redskins had until the sixth inning. In the meantime, the offense started to heat up, scoring three runs in the first, another in the second and three more in the thirds to take a commanding 7-0 lead.
“The short game is so important for us,” said Robitzek, “especially against a team that makes errors like that.”
Robin Kennedy, Robitzek and Goss all crossed home in the first, Jamie Dorion, who smacked a triple in the second, scored in that inning, and Robitzek, Katelyn Bermudez and Autumn Bell scampered home with runs in the third.
Elisha Dorso hit a single and scored in the fourth inning, while Danielle Guerin, Sam Morency and Bell came home in the fifth. The Saints (12-3) nearly won by the 12-run rule in the bottom of the fifth, but stranded Alex Hewitt at third and Goss at first.
“At that point, we had a team huddle and the girls realized how they were about to lose,” said Gray. “They made a serious effort not to lose by rule. They wanted to play the whole game.”
That message carried over into the sixth, when Christy Haley and Rachel Gray crossed with the Redskins’ two runs on three consecutive hits. Goss settled back in, though, and shut the Redskins (6-10) down for the final six outs of the game.
St. Dom’s advances to the Western Class C quarterfinal round, where they will face Sacopee Valley on Thursday.
Comments are no longer available on this story