GRAY — Charlotte Benoit and Sarah Felkel, seniors on the Greely High softball team, sure picked a good time to hit their first career home runs.

Benoit homered with one out in the seventh inning and Felkel followed two batters later with a two-run homer, both over the left-field fence, and the Rangers held on to defeat Gray-New Gloucester 7-5 in a Class B South game Wednesday.

Moira Train of Greely slides safely into second base Wednesday as Gray-New Gloucester shortstop Alexa Thayer awaits a throw in front of second baseman Hannah Dixon. John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Greely pitcher Kelsey Currier throws a pitch in Wednesday's game. John Ewing/Staff Photographer

GNG's Cara Waltz slides into second base safely with a double in the third inning. Taking the throw is Greely second baseman Lexi Faietta. John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Greely shortstop Moira Train applies the tag to GNG's Hannah Dixon, on a steal attempt in the fifth inning. John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Their home runs gave Greely a 7-2 lead. The Patriots made it close with three unearned runs in the bottom of the inning.

“Thank God for those back-to-backs,” said Greely Coach Rob Hale.

It was an interesting ending to a game that was scoreless through four innings and 1-0 into the sixth. Both teams fielded well early on, and starting pitchers Kelsey Currier of Greely and Alie Martell of Gray-New Gloucester made clutch pitches.

But then the Rangers got untracked.

“That’s happened in a few games where we’ve had one or two big innings where a lot of people get solid contact,” said Benoit, who drove in the game’s first run with a sacrifice fly. “So we’re really swinging the bats pretty well.”

The victory lifted the Rangers, ranked third in the Heal points standings, to 9-3. Gray-New Gloucester, ranked ninth, dropped to 7-4.

“There’s a few things we need to work on,” said Benoit. “But overall I think we’re in a pretty good spot.”

Martell worked out of a couple of jams in the first four innings to keep the game scoreless. But in the fourth, the Rangers loaded the bases with no outs and got a one-out deep fly to center from Benoit to make it 1-0.

The Rangers then scored three in the top of the sixth – an RBI single by Miranda Eisenhart and a two-run double by Currier – to seemingly break it open at 4-0.

Gray-New Gloucester responded with two in the bottom of the sixth, Grace Kariotis getting an RBI single and Martell a run-scoring groundout, but stranded a runner at third.

Then the Rangers appeared to put it away in the top of the seventh. With one out Benoit drove a pitch well beyond the left-field fence. “I wasn’t even sure it was going out when I hit it,” she said, noting this was her first out-of-the-park home run. “I didn’t know it was out until I saw (the left fielder’s) hands go up when I was rounding first.”

After Evan Carroll reached on an error, Felkel followed with a line shot that also cleared the left-field fence.

The Patriots made it tight in the bottom of the inning. A two-out error allowed the first run in. Another throwing error allowed the next two to score.

“That definitely shows a lot of heart and character,” said Patriots Coach Amanda Harmon. “This team definitely plays all the way through.”

Currier allowed four hits in gaining the pitching victory. She struck out four and made two nice defensive plays in the circle, the first on a sharp one-hopper, the second an over-the-shoulder catch on a soft pop-up.

“Hits her spots and she doesn’t get fazed with someone being on,” said Hale. “And as you saw, she can field her position. She’s mentally tough.”

“We’re a really good team,” said Currier. “We just have to get our hits and our fielding down, and we’ll hope to finish good.”

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