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06/06/2013 12:00 AMThe East Haven softball team’s season came to an end on June 5 at West Haven with a 7-0 loss to 2nd-seeded Granby in the semifinal of the Class M State Tournament.
The No. 6 Yellowjackets played a sloppy game in the field and continued their slump with the bats, notching just two hits off Granby pitcher Courtney Ahrens.
“We haven’t been hitting since the last week of the season,” East Haven skipper Ed Crisafi said. “The whole postseason we haven’t hit. We’ve been relying on defense and pitching.”
What worked in the early rounds didn’t work on this day as East Haven pitchers Talia Loda and Ireland Miessau allowed 13 hits and the defense made four errors behind them.
“Defensively, we were awful and it just didn’t seem like our heads were in the game,” Crisafi said. “We threw to the wrong base; I felt we could’ve had two runners at the plate and we overthrew [Brianna] Spadacenta twice, I just don’t know. We picked a bad day to play our worst game of the year.”
Amanda Jessey led off the game with a bunt single, but Loda was unable to sacrifice her to second base. Then, No. 3 hitter Allie Luzzi hit a bullet back at Ahrens, who stabbed it out of the air and doubled off Kara Hanson at first base, who was pinch-running for Loda who hit into a fielder’s choice.
In the second, Spadacenta led the inning off with a double, but a strikeout, groundout, and pop-out ended the threat and really took the life out of the Easties’ offense.
“It set the tone for the whole game,” Crisafi said. “If we jump out 1-0 or 2-0, it would be a different game because that’s what we’ve been doing the past week—getting the early lead and relying on our defense.”
Granby scored its first two runs in the second inning off Loda. A walk, a fielder’s choice, and a single had runners on first and second with an out when Jaimee Kidd singled to center field to score a run. Jenna Gaudioso tried to nab the runner at the plate, but hit the backstop on the fly, allowing runners to advance a base, which put runners on second and third with an out. Granby’s next batter, Erin Walsh, laid down a perfect squeeze bunt to increase the lead to 2-0.
It was more of the same in the third inning, when Granby was able to get two more runs across. The big hits of the inning all came in two-strike counts and they were all seeing-eye singles. Ellie Bourque and Samantha Groskritz both got on and scored on a base knock by Ahrens. In the fourth, two more runs scored on three weak singles and an error by shortstop Miranda Baldassare that could’ve ended the inning without any damage.
“Blooper, blooper, blooper,” Crisafi said of the inning. “We couldn’t catch a break.”
That fourth was Loda’s last inning of work and Miessau took over in the fifth inning, trailing 6-0. She instantly allowed a run to score when Ahrens started the inning with a single and was driven home when McKenzie Miessau couldn’t handle a fly ball to left field off the bat of Jennifer Szilagyi. Miessau was able to avoid further damage in her two innings of work, but East Haven’s bats couldn’t buy a run in this one.
The Yellowjackets went three up, three down in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth innings and weren’t able to establish any momentum at the dish. The first two innings were the turning point for their offense when they couldn’t capitalize on their opportunities.
Spadacenta got on base via an error on Granby’s shortstop in the top of the seventh, but Baldassare ended the game going down swinging and putting a fork in East Haven’s season.
The Yellowjackets end the year 21-5 and tied the school record for number of wins in a season, but the end result was not the goal.
“We still had a great year,” Crisafi said. “It just stings because you lose in the semifinals, so you don’t really think about what a great year you’ve had. We just need a couple of days to take it in.”