Softball and Baseball Recap, April 14 to April 27

The softball and baseball teams here at Southern Maine Community College have had a busy spring with many games, often playing double-headers. For the most part the rain has held up and allowed for some great spring sports action. The softball team this year has been a sporadic bunch, sometimes having a 4 game winning streak and sometimes having a 6 game losing streak.

The baseball team started off very slow and couldn’t string together a single winning performance at the beginning of the spring. In the last few weeks, the baseball team has turned things around and the softball team has had the same identity as a sporadic team.

On April 16^th the softball and baseball teams played a double header against Northern Essex Community College out of Haverhill, Massachusetts. In these two games the lady Seawolves played arguably their best two games of the season combining to outscore NECC 28-5 in only 8 innings of total play due to mercy rule.

In the first game, SMCC ace pitcher Charlotte Lewis held NECC to 1 hit, striking out a whopping 7 batters out of the 12 total outs recorder. The 2^nd inning would be a huge for the Lady Seawolves, recording a total of 11 runs in that inning alone. The biggest blast of the inning was recorded by 1^st baseman Kathryn Gilio who had a grand slam to clear the bases and finish with 4 runs batted in leading the Lady Seawolves. Shortstop Anna Allard also shined in this game finishing with 3 runs batted in helping the Seawolves win by a score of 13-2.

It was another offensive outburst for the Lady Seawolves in the 2^nd game of the double-header, out hitting NECC 16 to 3 in the game. They would go onto win the 2^nd game 15-3 led by Kathryn Gilio who had another impressive performance finishing with 3 runs batted in. She would finish the day going 5 for 7 with 7 runs batted in for the Lady Seawolves. Not a bad day to say the least.

The baseball team would continue their good play in the mid-spring stretch after a very slow start to the season losing their first 11 games. After winning 3 of their last 4 games they faced Eastern Maine Community College in a home contest.

This was an all around great showing for the Seawolves. From pitching, to hitting and defensively, there were nearly no blemishes. On the mound, SMCC pitcher Nate Boyle had one of the greatest pitching performances of the season for the Seawolves. He pitched 5 innings of work, allowing 1 hit, by EMCC’s Brendan Glass. He also allowed no earned runs and struck out a total of 12 batters with no walks. An overall grade A performance. The Seawolves finished this game with no errors in the field and a total of 10 runs offensively winning the game 10-0. Offensively the Seawolves were lead in this contest by South Portland’s own Zach Horton who went 2 for 2 in the game with 3 runs batted in.

April 17 to 19 would be a very busy 3 days for the softball team here at Southern Maine Community College. They would play a total of 6 games in only 3 days against CCRI, NHTI and rivals CMCC.

The two games played against CMCC would be a split losing the first game 16-8 and winning the second 8-5. These two games for the Lady Seawolves were complete opposites of each other. In the first game SMCC finished with a total of 8 errors in the field, which led to so many extra runners on base resulting in 16 runs allowed.

As the old saying goes, defense wins games and it is true. A team can’t expect to win a game if they have so many errors in the field. The same thing would happen to CMCC in the back end of the double-header. CMCC would finish the game with 7 errors in the field, losing the game. CMCC would outscore SMCC 21-16 on the day but still losing 1 game, as CMCC was led by Maggie McConkey of Fryeburg, ME going 3 for 7 on the day with 4 totals runs batted in.

For SMCC Anna Allard led the way going 4 for 7 on the day with 4 total runs batted in. Allard recently got the honors of winning YSCC player of the week for her great performance.

The next 6 games for the lady Seawolves would be a tough stretch for them. After winning 5 of their last 6 games, they would go on to lose 6 games in a row. The Seawolves in these 6 games got outscored 49-28 and struggled to get anything going. In this stretch the Seawolves had 34 total errors defensively averaging more then 5 errors a game. It is difficult to win games averaging that many errors and that was biggest problem for SMCC this season.

On April 19th the SMCC baseball team played a double-header against NHTI in which their offensive and overall great run continued. In the first game pitcher Dan French was the starting pitcher for SMCC facing NHTI’s Patrick Jarvis who would struggle in this game. Jarvis gave up 10 earned runs on 8 hits and walking 4 batters. SMCC batters were all over him in this game.

The big inning came in the 3^rd when SMCC scored 9 runs off big hits by Jon Daniszewski and Alex Brown. Daniszewski is someone who has improved a lot since first joining the Seawolves the previous semester. He has even switched positions from catcher to outfield where he had never previously played. “Jon has seen his average climb almost 100 points since the start of playing here and has also provided some stability at the corner in the outfield,” said head coach Jared Lemieux. Daniszewski is a player who is under the radar who has been helping the Seawolves in this winning streak and getting some notice from his coach.

After scoring 9 runs in the 3^rd inning of the first game, the Seawolves would go onto win 12 to 5 against NHTI and would come up on top in the 2^nd game as well winning that one 11-7. This win would be the 4^th game in a row where the Seawolves would score double-digits. Their bats were defiantly working for them in this 4 game stretch. The baseball team would go onto beat Dean College the next day in a double-header and have now won 8 of their last 9 games after previously losing 11 straight games. They are on a great run going into their final few games of the season and Coach Lemieux is very impressed by their progress.

“I think this group gained some confidence as a unit when we started playing at home. With a team heavy with freshmen, it took some time for the players to gel as a unit. We struggled early on putting all three facets of the game together including pitching, hitting and defense in one game.”

“This group has been relentless in their commitment to developing as individuals and the player’s commitment to the program and life as student-athletes has paid dividends. Nobody gave up and each day we have gotten better and better. These guys work hard and are fun to coach,” said Coach Jared Lemieux. It’s defiantly an impressive turnaround for the Seawolves and one to be respected. I wish them luck in their final few games of the season.

To end the softball teams season, they did some things that could be thought of as unexpected by many but not by the Seawolves fans who have seen their great ups and downs. They had a winning streak going all the way to the conference championship game after losing 6 games in a row. They won 12-4 against EMCC, 17-10(EMCC) and 13-4 in their conference semifinal game against CMCC. They poured out 42 runs in these 3 games to bring them to the YSCC conference championship in New Hampshire against NHTI who they had lost 5 of 6 to in the course of the fall and spring seasons. They would pull off the great upset beating NHTI 1-0 in a pitching battle where SMCC Charlotte Lewis would throw the shutout. Lewis would win the tournament MVP award and Roberta Trafton of SMCC would win outstanding defensive player of the tournament. This would be a tremendous accomplishment for the lady Seawolves, as they became the YSCC champions.

It has been a great spring season to watch here at Southern Maine Community College and has seen some great adversity overcome. These student athletes never gave up in losing streak and prevailed in winning streaks. Both coaches should be proud of their accomplishments and I hope for the best in the baseball teams final games.

Baseball will still play a double header against Nasheau Community College and a best of 3 tournament with Bridgton Academy. If you’re an SMCC Seawolves fan you are hoping SMCC will extend their winning streak to 10 games to end the season and end a great year in YSCC College sporting action. Thanks for reading, and as always, Go Seawolves