Branford Hornets Repeat as Fall-Ball Champions

From Branford Hornets: Congratulations to the Branford Hornets on repeating as champions in the 2017 Shoreline Sting Fall-Ball League. Last year’s team won it all for the first time but this year’s team had thoughts of etching their place in Branford Softball history and did so on Saturday at Coginchaug High School in Durham. The two starting pitchers for the Hornets, Jillian Cofrancesco and Marzia Johnson, were incredible on Saturday. Both pitchers combined for 8 innings of work with 11 strikeouts, 3 walks, 3 base hits and 0 runs. The hornets defense was crisp as well, no errors in two games while the offense contributed big time scoring 28 runs in the 8 innings played. The two big bats in both games came from Adrianna Franceshi and Marzia Johnson, both girls combined for 2 doubles, 1 triple and 3 home runs spearheading the Hornets offensive flurry.

“This was a crazy year for us, because of our pitching last year we were placed in the travel division this year. Losing half of our 8thgraders from last year our team was very young this year and at times it showed, we defiantly took it on the chin in a few games this season but like I tell my girls, you learn a lot about yourself when you win and when you lose, the trick is to always look to learn and improve from it”.

“Before the games started both Jillian and Marzia were going through their warm-ups, at the end I asked them what was working and what wasn’t working for them and they both told me all their pitches were working, that has not been the norm this season but I thought to myself, okay let’s see what happens when the games begin. Once they started pitching I knew something good was going on, Jillian and Marzia were both throwing first pitch strikes, then mixing in their drop, rise and change-ups after getting ahead in the count and on top of that they were both working the inside and outside part of the plate with consistency, it was amazing to watch”.

“The coaches and I are very proud of these kids, a lot of hard work and time went into this all summer long and it certainly paid off for them last Saturday”.

The Branford Hornets:

From left to right:

• Sophia Warfield
• Assunta Colleta
• Caroline Johnson
• Marzia Johnson
• Hailey Seay
• Adrianna Ramos
• Jillian Cofrancesco
• Jade Bocciarelli
• Adrianna Franceschi
• Ellie Burger
• Paige Kelly

Coaches:

• Tom Cofrancesco
• Mark Johnson
• Rick Kelly
• Danielle Folk – Bench mom / Book keeper.

Not Pictured:

• Kennedy House – Honorary Team Captain

Image Courtesy of Tom CoFrancesco