TOPSHAM

Tuesday’s weather was a sure sign of summer, hitting well into the 80s in temperature and with limited clouds in the sky. The Mt. Ararat High School softball team has been showing signs of heating up as well, winning Tuesday’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference and “Battle of the Bridge” contest against rival Brunswick in five-innings and activating the Mercy Rule, 13-0.

The win marked the Eagles’ third win in four games, while doing it on “Senior Day.”

On top of the offensive showdown put together by the Eagles, Rhiannon Hersey dealt a no-hitter in her five innings of work, allowing just three runners to reach base, two of which she hit and another trotting down to first via a walk.

“It was nice to get the bats going,” Eagles (6-8) coach Al Graffam said. “We’ve had good defense and good pitching all year, it’s just stringing hits together, and we’ve had a string lately where we’ve been hitting the ball hard, but right at somebody. It was nice to get a few hits in a row and they had fun.”

“The problem with us is we’re in that rut,” Dragons (1-13) head coach Hugh Dwyer said. “You can see it and in that first inning we fought in every way that we knew how. I think we’ve come away not knowing how to get back up and battle anymore. You can’t be insincere when you’re addressing a group like that. There’s no quit in them, but the expectations were that we would be more successful, and because we’re not they really get down on themselves and that’s our struggle right now.”

After Hersey struck out three of the four batters she faced in the first inning, the Eagles responded in style at the plate, grinding out seven runs on six hits to take a commanding 7-0 lead into the top of the second.

Alana Weaver and Kayleigh Temple walked and singled, respectively, to lead things off and Katelyn Cox drilled an 0-1 pitch to deep right-center field for a triple to score Weaver and Temple. The string of runs continued from there with an RBI single for Kate Guerin and an RBI ground out off the bat of Zoe Stilphen. Maggie Vaillancourt and Belle Benner also crossed the plate after reaching on a walk and a single, respectively.

Come the second inning, Dragons starting pitcher Hannah Escoe settled down, retiring the side in order on two fly outs and a ground out on just eight pitches.

In the top half of the third Brunswick had what became its only opportunity to score a run. With one out, Alicia Armstrong was hit by a pitch and stole second, and an errant throw allowed her to bolt to third. However, Hersey fanned the following two batters to end the inning.

“During the Lewiston game (12-0 win) our mental game was high because we were hitting the ball and we had a lot of confidence,” Dragons senior captain Ashley Howe said. “In the last couple of weeks we’ve had a tough stretch of games, so it kind of knocked us down a little bit. I feel like we’ve been doing a lot better with our mental game because we’ve been hitting the ball, not necessarily been getting on base, but we’ve been making contact.”

Eagles accelerate

Mt. Ararat put the gas pedal to the floor once more in the third. Escoe started the inning by carrying over her second-inning success, retiring the first two hitters she saw, but the Eagles piled on five more runs with two outs.

Vaillancourt, Benner and Weaver all walked to load the bases and a base knock to shallow center by Temple plated two runs for a 9-0 lead. Cox continued with her hardhitting ways, belting a ground-rule double down the right-field line, scoring Weaver and Temple.

The Eagles notched one more run in the fourth for good measure and Hersey left a Dragon runner stranded when striking out the last batter of the game to seal the victory.

“I felt really good,” Hersey said about her performance. “It was really hot, but I pushed through it. We have done a good job getting our bats going. We just have to give it all (the rest of the way).”

“She’s been incredibly consistent all year,” Graffam said about Hersey. “Teams have a hard time hitting off of her. We’ve got two good pitchers, Alana Weaver being the other, and we’ve pretty much rotated them all year and we’ll continue to do that all week. Rhiannon had good command, she was great.”

“We’ve been working a lot on, and you might hear me say this 30 times a game, looking for the down strikes,” Dwyer said. “It’s something that they’ve recently been able to accomplish. We hit the ball really well against Mt. Blue and the game before that we hit the ball late, well. Today, except for the first two batters, they started to look for the down strikes and they’re making contact.

“We’re really close, I really do think we’re close defensively and offensively, especially. We’ll see with Lewiston and Oxford Hills, we’re going to give them everything we have.”

Mt. Ararat 13, Brunswick 0

At Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham

	Brunswick	—	000	00	—	0-0-0
Mt.	Ararat	—	705	1X	—	13-9-0

Hannah Escoe, Ashley Howe (3) and
Gianna Gaudet, Alicia Armstrong (4);
Rhiannon Hersey and Kayleigh Temple. Double — (MtA) Katelyn Cox.
Triple — (MtA) Katelyn Cox.
Repeat Hitters — (MtA) Kayleigh
Temple, Katelyn Cox, Kate Guerin.
Records — Mt. Ararat 6-9,
Brunswick 1-13.
Up next for the Eagles — Today at
Messalonskee, 3:30 p.m.
Up next for the Dragons — Friday at
Lewiston, 4 p.m.