BY MATT DIFILIPPO
Staff Writer
The Nokomis softball team’s roster hasn’t changed much, but the Warriors have already won as many games as they did in all of 2011. The Warriors are 7-3 this season after going 7-9 last spring. Nokomis also owns big wins against Gardiner, Maranacook, and Winslow.
“We’re playing really good,” Nokomis coach JD McLellan said. “You’ve got to catch some breaks. We’ve had some luck, and we’ve had some people coming through.”
Senior Megan Perry, who was the Warriors’ catcher as a sophomore before missing all of last season with a knee injury, is starting at second base and has struck out only once this year. McLellan said Perry and fellow senior Becca Boyce do a nice job of getting everyone in the right frame of mind to play.
“They’re probably the best seniors I’ve had in a long time,” McLellan said.
Players like Perry, Sierra Fortin, and Drew Graves are producing from the bottom half of the order. Fortin was previously a slap hitter but is now taking more conventional cuts and hitting well, while Graves is hitting for both average and power and covers a tremendous amount of ground in left field.
“Drew Graves has been in the zone,” McLellan said. “The hits that don’t show up are the ones that she literally hits to the fence and they catch.”
Nokomis’ last game was also its worst. The Warriors lost 15-3 to Oceanside on Monday. Still, McLellan got a good vibe from his team’s reaction to that loss.
“The next day, I said, ‘It’s over. It’s done,’ ” McLellan said. “They were actually mad that I wasn’t yelling at them.
“These girls want to be yelled at. They want to work the next day. That’s what I want.”
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Normally, it wouldn’t be remarkable to see Brooklynne Lewis catching for Carrabec. After all, Lewis was the starter as a freshman last spring.
But Lewis tore her anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee during basketball season, and the normal recovery time is several months. But Lewis was back in the lineup, catching and batting second, just three months and two weeks after tearing her ACL.
“She said, ‘If my doctor lets me come back, I want to catch,’ ” Carrabec coach Craig Knight said. “I’ll tell you, it’s made a huge difference in this team. We’ve played much better since she came back. The kids love having her back.”
Knight was skeptical Lewis would be back this season, but then he was shocked at the 5K road race during Carrabec’s breast cancer awareness weekend. Knight was watching the finish, and saw Lori Dana and her daughter, Sikwani, cross the line, then his own daughter Myranda. Then came Lewis, placing fourth among the women three months after tearing her ACL.
“I didn’t know she was going to run it,” Knight said. “I was (upset). I saw her coming up that road. I said, ‘You gotta be kidding me!’ She was legging it.”
Knight said Lewis isn’t wearing any kind of brace on her knee during games.
“The doctor didn’t want her in one,” Knight said. “He said, ‘You’d know if you needed a brace after running a 5K.’ “
Like most people, Knight said he’s never seen anything like it.
“It couldn’t happen to a better kid,” he said. “Mentally, she was down. Softball’s her thing. We’re trying to get her back into Frozen Ropes so she can play this summer.”
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It was raining pretty hard in Jackman on Wednesday afternoon, but if the field is ready for today, Forest Hills will play its first home games of the season in a doubleheader against Rangeley. The Tigers are 4-3, and have played all seven of those games on the road. They won’t play on the road again this year unless they make the playoffs.
Forest Hills has a shot, but is below Vinalhaven for the final spot in Western D. The bizarre thing is that Vinalhaven is 1-5 — including two losses to Forest Hills.
“I can’t believe it, really,” Tigers coach Ernie Giroux said. “It’ll work out in the end, I hope.”
Forest Hills has only one senior, so Giroux is already excited about next season. He raves about sophomore Kori Coro, a center fielder turned pitcher out of necessity.
“She is the best hitter I have ever had,” said Giroux, who has coached varsity softball for 16 years in Jackman. “She can hit anything, and with power, and hit it anywhere. She is the best defensive pitcher I have ever had. She is so quick.”
Another player standing out for the Tigers is sophomore catcher Dana McNally.
“She’s doing outstanding,” Giroux said. “She can stop anything behind the plate. She’s unbelievable. Last year, she had problems throwing to second with accuracy. This year, it’s on a line. Her hitting has come big time, too.”
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Winslow is 7-5, and only one of those losses was by more than three runs. One reason the Black Raiders are such a solid team is the play of their freshmen. Three of them — left fielder Brooke Haskell, third baseman Gabby Languet, and center fielder Hayley Pottle — are regulars in the starting lineup.
“That’s the thing — we’re a young team, but our freshmen are mentally tough,” Winslow coach Beth Fisher said. “They do a good job, and I love to watch them. They’re always improving, but it’s just the experience. They’re getting the experience, for sure.”
Pottle showed the contributions those players can make in Wednesday’s game with Maranacook. With one out and Jordyn Pomerleau on third in the fourth inning of a 2-2 game, Pottle twice couldn’t get a bunt down and fell behind 1-2 in the count. She then fouled off four straight two-strike pitches from hard-throwing senior Sarah Boynton, before grounding out to second base and bringing home the go-ahead run. It would have been a good at-bat for a senior, much less a freshman.
“They’re all doing amazing things,” Fisher said. “It takes a special freshman to be able to play a high level of softball on varsity their first year of high school, and we’ve got three of them.”
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
mdifilippo@centralmaine.com
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