MHS softball used to close contests
By: Justin Feil
The Montgomery High softball team’s reputation for being pretty good under pressure has carried over from last year to this year.
Of course, the Cougars have to have ice in their veins to put up with their penchant for late-inning dramatics on top of a game that is close by its very nature. But they would rather save proof of their pressure-packed prowess for the Somerset County Tournament and a second straight Group III state championship run.
Already, MHS has gotten out of a bases-loaded, no-out seventh inning before winning in the eighth inning, a win in the seventh inning and a two-run win Thursday over Warren Hills on Thursday. Finally, however, living on the edge caught up with the Cougars in a 2-1 loss on Friday when Hopewell Valley scored twice in the top of the seventh inning and MHS had no answer in its final at bat.
"It’s too early in the season for this," said MHS captain Christie Whitehead, whose second-inning double provided the lone run batted in for the Cougars on Friday. Whitehead’s hit for the Cougars’ only run continued a disturbing early season trend in which MHS hits like a one-inning wonder.
While the Cougars have repeated early plenty the saying that hitting is contagious, it appears that many of the players have built up antibodies to their teammates’ hitting. It’s certainly added to the pressure in late innings.
"It’s a combination of not scoring a lot and doing it all in only one inning," said MHS head coach Johnny Rooney. "Every game, we’ve only scored in one inning. There are a bunch of no-run innings, then one inning where score one run, two runs or three runs. Everybody says, ‘We’ll rely on someone else. We’ll rely on our pitching, or we’ll rely on our defense.’ It’s a good attitude. But it’s gotten to the point where everyone has to take it on themselves at the plate."
The frustrating thing for Rooney and the Cougars is that it isn’t as though they’re not hitting. It’s all a matter of timing.
"I remember last season, we weren’t even getting people on base," Whitehead said. "The frustration comes this year because we have people on base, but we’re not getting them in. We’re working on building confidence in people at the plate.
"We’ll have that 1-0 lead, and girls get up there nonchalantly. Then, all of a sudden, it’s the bottom of seventh and we have a one-run lead. We need to be aware of it early on. That’s why I think it was a good experience Friday. We hate this feeling. We don’t want it again."
Rooney agrees. If the Cougars had to lose, it’s better to do it now, get it over with and hopefully build quickly off the experience.
"Last year our learning experience was the county tournament," he said. "That’s kind of when the light bulb went on and everyone said we need to step it up. We went on to win 12 of 13 games. Everybody on our schedule, we want to beat. Everybody wants to beat Montgomery. They’re going to come with a little hungrier attitude and want to beat us. It puts pressure on us. It’s a compliment.
"Right now, should be looking at 2-2 (if Ridge had scored with the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh). Then again, we left 11 people on base and hit into two inning-enders. At this point last year, we were 1-2 and we had only given up two runs and scored five. We’ve only scored eight and only given up two runs and we’re 3-1. So part of me is happy that Friday happened. You don’t learn from nailbiters and winning dramatically. You learn from losing. I think a lot of the kids learned from Friday."
Whitehead believes that the loss also relieves a little of that pressure from the Cougars, who were still riding their state championship win streak when they opened this season. Not having the pressure of the perfect season could help in the long run.
"We had undefeated pressure," the first baseman said. "We knew it would come some time. It’s out of the way.
"I just think, it was also a reality check for the team. We’re going out there and we’re not 3-0 and we don’t have the pressure of being undefeated and everything. We’re well aware that everyone is bringing their ‘A’ game. A lot of things are new for us. It’s a reality check. We’re scoring too late. We have to try to jump on teams earlier."
Friday was the perfect example of why MHS, which prides itself on a airtight defense and aggressive base-running game, needs more than one run to feel most comfortable. Sure, its defense in combination with the pitching of Amanda Heller and Kim Dougherty is good. But it doesn’t deserve that sort of pressure.
"I think that’s also why have that attitude on defense," Whitehead said. "We kind of built that. We had to learn how to deal with that. We had to learn how to have the flawless innings and the 1-2-3 innings."
MHS has had enough of them. It’s time they start giving themselves a little bigger cushion in the later innings.
"We’re a team that we definitely have the capabilities of putting runs on the board," Rooney said. "We’re not striking out much. We’re flying out and our pitch selection has not been the greatest.
"We’re hitting the wrong part of the softball," he added. "There’s going to be a game where we break out and score seven or eight runs. The kids have to take a little more responsibility. They have good mechanics. They know the fundamentals. They know what to do."
It’s all that’s missing from making the Cougars an even stronger challenger to anyone on their schedule. It’s something they’ll need in order to pursue both the county and state titles.
"We have this attitude with our defense," Whitehead said. "There’s a certain level of confidence. We’re still lacking it in the batter’s box. We have it in base running and out in the field. We just have to know we’re going to at least hit the ball on the ground and advance the runner. Hitting is contagious. It really is."
So is pressure, and the MHS softball team could use a little less of it in the early going.

