With Monday’s 16-5 romp over South River, the Monroe Township High School softball team clinched a co-championship of the Greater Middlesex Conference’s Blue Division.
By:Carolyn Hartko
With Monday’s 16-5 romp over South River, the Monroe Township High School softball team clinched a co-championship of the Greater Middlesex Conference’s Blue Division.
“This was one of our goals at the beginning of the year,” Lady Falcon head coach Jean Elias said. “We set (winning) a division title as a goal last year, and came up a little short. So, it was nice to achieve it this year.”
The Falcons followed up that achievement with a resounding, 20-0 win over St. Peter’s Wednesday in a GMC Tournament preliminary round game. The victory tied the school record for wins in a season, and advances the 7th-seeded Falcons (17-5) to Saturday’s quarterfinals against 10th-seeded Old Bridge (10-10). The Knights advanced with a 10-0 win over St. Mary’s.
The division crown is the school’s first softball title since the formation of the GMC. There is a banner in the Falcon gym proclaiming that they were Central Valley Conference Champions back in 1976. A brand new banner for this year’s Blue Division Championship is a good way to start a century.
Although the difference in the score was more than 10 runs, Monday’s game went the full seven innings. The Rams scattered their runs in the right order to forestall the 10-run rule. For the Falcons, this was junior Cristina Venetucci’s turn to shine. She went 3-for-4 at bat, with a double and triple. Venetucci also scored four times and posted two RBI. Junior Valerie Ciccone belted a double for the Falcons.
Monday’s game may have made it official, but the Falcons knew they had a piece of the pie after Friday’s 7-1 victory over Carteret, who they now share the title with. Had Carteret taken that game, the Ramblers would have won the crown outright. Instead, Monroe avenged an earlier season loss (4-3), and moved into the first place tie.
Sophomore Vicki Blevins paced the Falcon offense against Carteret, going 3-for-4 with a triple and two RBI. Jessica DeLasso (2-for-3) also had two RBI, and Venetucci hit a double. Pitcher Jackie Scarpari had a good day on the mound, scattering five hits and holding Carteret to one run.
As was proper, the Falcons held off on celebrating their title until after the South River game. Unfortunately, their coach missed most of the festivities.
“The girls were excited,” Elias said. “I missed most of the excitement because I had to go straight to the seeding meeting (for the GMC tournament) after the game. The kids went out after they got back to the school. It sounds like they had a lot of fun celebrating.”
Elias came out of that seeding meeting pretty pleased with the Falcons seventh seed, one spot ahead of Carteret.“It was very nice to be seeded that high,” Elias said. “That’s the highest seed we’ve ever gotten.”
She was even more pleased after the Falcons effort on Wednesday, as Scarpari threw her third no-hitter of the season against St. Peter’s (5-14). The pitcher helped her cause going 3-for-4 with a home run and four RBI, while Scarpa had three hits, three runs and three RBI.