Outstanding pitching performance wasted against Steinert.
By: Neil Hay
If anything, through the first three games of the new season, the Hightstown High softball team showed an ability to score runs. Fourteen runs on opening day, then 11 in a game that went only five innings, and 13 more on Thursday.
So when the Rams took the field Monday at Steinert, the last thing Coach Tim Kalick expected was to see his team shut out. That is exactly what happened. What made the situation more difficult to accept was that Hightstown wasted an outstanding performance by starting pitcher Erika Juricic, who took her own shutout into the bottom of the seventh inning before the Spartans pushed across a two-out run for a 1-0 win.
The loss dropped Hightstown to 1-3 on the spring.
"Erika pitched a great game," said Kalick. "Both pitchers pitched a great game."
Both pitchers were on their mark, as the game was over in one hour and ten minutes.
Juricic finished with a four-hitter with one walk and three strikeouts. The Spartans pushed across the game’s only run on a bunt, throwing error, and two-out single.
The Rams managed only two hits, by Brianne Teichmann and Cara Montferrat, in the second inning. But the locals were unable to mount any further threat in the inning.
"We’ve been hitting the ball and producing runs," said Kalick after the Steinert game. "(Monday) we go flat. Nothing. I don’t know what it was."
The offense was stilled Monday, but Hightstown had its hitting shoes on Thursday against visiting West Windsor-North. Elyssa Swern had a home run and Michele Jacobsen, Montferrat, and Juricic all had two runs batted in. But North prevailed 16-13, thanks to six runs in the fifth and five more in the sixth. The Rams finished the afternoon with nine hits, with Jacobsen getting two singles to go with her two RBI.
"We produced a lot of runs but we didn’t back her up," said Kalick, noting that his team made three errors. North also collected 13 hits in the slugfest.
"We knocked the ball around. It see-sawed back and forth."
Eleven hits (and five runs) were not enough Tuesday as the Rams fell to visiting Hopewell Valley, 7-5. Hightstown outhit the Valley girls, 11 to eight, but a six-run second carried the Bulldogs to victory.
Juricic went the distance, striking out five with six walks. The visitors took a 7-1 lead in the second before Hightstown battled back with three runs in the fourth and another in the fifth. That was it, however.
"In all the losses we are just unable to get over the hump. We can’t play from behind every time. We are hitting the ball and scoring runs. We have to play with the lead instead of behind. The girls are battling. We are in every game. We are not getting blown out. We have to play solid for seven innings, not six," said Kalick.
Jacobsen finished with three hits and a run batted in, Swern had a double and two RBI, and Amanda Huelbig (double) and Teichmann (triple) had extra base hits.

