After Loss in MCT Softball Final, Matawan Staying Focused on What Lies Ahead

Photo’s above: Huskies senior hurler Erin Powers lets one fly in Saturday’s action and head coach Bob Dubina offers encouragement to his players entering the bottom of the seventh down two runs.

WALL TOWNSHIP – Losing 2-0 to the No.2 ranked team in the state and quite possibly to the 2015 New Jersey Player of the Year is nothing to hang your head about if you’re the Matawan Huskie softball team.

Although Saint John Vianney’s Ashley Ventura – the 2014 Shore Conference Player of the Year - pitched a perfect game against the Huskies in Saturday’s Monmouth County Tournament final, if you put things into perspective it could’ve been a lot worse. The Lancers won their previous three tournament games by a collective score of 36-0 with all three games shortened by mercy rule endings.

The Lancers have only given up six runs all year in 22 games with 17 shutouts. Ventura’s (22-0) earned run average is an astonishing 0.28, but even without a baserunner, no team has come closer to beating the Lancers this year than the Huskies did on Saturday.

Top-to-bottom Saint John Vianney has one – if not the best – hitting lineups in the state with eight starters hitting over .400 and as a team they’ve clubbed 35 home runs. Yet, Matawan senior starting pitcher Erin Powers held them to one earned run on five hits without a walk in seven innings of stellar work off the mound.

It would’ve been understandable if Powers got a little rattled after surrendering a leadoff homer to Ventura in the top of the fourth inning but all she did was strike out the next batter and retire the side in order following the homer.

“I just knew that I had a great defense behind me and all I had to do was let them put it in play and my teammates had my back,” Powers said. “This game tells us that our team has the ability to play with anyone. We played with the No. 2 team in the state; I think we can play with anyone.”

“Erin was hitting her spots well today and going inside-and-outside on them,” Matawan head coach Bob Dubina said. “She’s really matured from a year ago and threw the ball really well; this was definitely her best game of the year. If she continues to throw this way we’ll be a tough out in the Shore Conference Tournament and state tournament.

Matawan has already won their opening round games in both tournaments, beating No.23 seed St. Rose 6-1 as the No. 10 seed in the Shore Conference Tournament and taking a 3-1 game from No. 9 seed Delran as the No.8 seed in the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group II Tournament.

This season, the Huskies - ranked eighth in the Shore Conference - won their first division title since 2006 sharing the Class B North title with Wall Township as both teams finished on top of the division with 11-3 records. They have a chance to win the programs first state title since 2005 and are still in the hunt for the school’s first-ever SCT title. So hopefully there’s still a lot of baseball to be played for Matawan.

“We’ve had a great year,” Dubina said. “We’ve already won 17 games after not being very competitive for a couple of years. Now when teams come to Matawan they know they’re in for a game.”

The tenth-seeded Huskies will face No.7 seed and fourth ranked Lacey Township (17-4) in the SCT round of 16 on Friday, May 22 at Lacey with first pitch scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Prior to that, on Wednesday the 20th Matawan travels to Clark to face No.1 seed Johnson (20-4) for a state quarterfinal game with time TBD.

“Pitching wise and defensively we did everything we wanted to do,” Dubina said. “We just couldn’t put any pressure on them offensively. We wanted to be competitive and I think we accomplished that. If we continue to play this way we’re going to be okay in the tournaments. We just need to be a little bit more mentally tougher, if we can do that we’ll be a tough out moving forward.”

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