By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
The season didn’t start exactly the way the Princeton High softball team hoped it would., The Little Tigers were no hit twice during an 0-4 start to the season. But Princeton has bounced back behind three strong efforts, earning a pair of wins against Trenton and a win over Hamilton to get its record to 3-4 heading into Wednesday’s game against Nottingham., “I think the winning is going to keep our motivation up and help us build confidence,” said senior Kayla Volante, who pitched a two-hitter and struck out 13 in an 11-2 win over Hamilton on Tuesday “It’s good for us that we are finally winning. It’s very positive and can go up from here., “We’re hitting the ball very well. If we can continue to hit the ball we’ll be good. That’s been our struggle to get going with our hitting. We didn’t score many in the first few games. This gets us going and motivated to get more. Everyone is excited now and thinks we can do even better. We started off with some hard competition.”, Princeton scored just two runs in its first four games before the bats came to life in a 10-0 win over Trenton, which was followed by a 15-0 win over Trenton four days later. The Little Tigers made it 36 runs in three games with the win over Hamilton. Sydney Durbin and Nancy Gray had two hits apiece, while Gillian Nadler and Megan Shanahan each drove in three runs against the Hornets., “I think Trenton was the confidence booster we needed,” Princeton coach Marissa Soprano said. “We had three really tough teams to start with South, Ewing and Notre Dame. We finally got the bats going at Notre Dame and scored a couple runs and then against Trenton they came out ready to hit and that carried over into today. So we were happy to see that., “We’ve been doing a good job defensively. It was really that offense that was off to a slow start. Hopefully we can carry this momentum into the next few games.”, Volante has been steady on the mound for the Little Tigers. She allowed just five hits and struck out 17 batters in her two combined starts against Trenton. She has established herself as a strong pitcher and has confidence in her defense, which makes her job easier., “It’s been going good for me,” Volante said. “It’s fun to work with the umpires and adjust to their strike zones. I like being able to strike people out and get some outs. We have a good defense and they were making the plays. Everyone in the infield is a junior or a senior so we have been playing together.”, Added Soprano: “She has been working very hard. She and the rest of the senior class have been leading the way for us. We have some juniors who have not played varsity so we want to make sure they have confidence that they can make the play.”, Princeton had a busy week on tap with games against Notre Dame (Thursday) and Allentown (Friday) before heading to Teaneck for a pair of games on Saturday.
