Bell's Masterpiece Gives Middletown North Sectional Championship

Photos above: The champs celebrate

By Mike Ready

MIDDLETOWN – As the 2018 softball season approached Middletown North head coach Chris Hoffman admits he didn’t know a whole lot about incoming transfer Malori Bell. What he did know was that he had to replace arguably the three best players in Middletown North softball history.

However, it didn’t take Hoffman long to realize he had a special player in Bell as she quickly showed that she was no ordinary sophomore when she stepped into the circle.

On Tuesday Bell again showed why she’s one of the top pitchers in the state leading the Lions to 4-1 win over Gov. Livingston for the NJSIAA North 2, Group III championship. She tossed a complete game three hitter allowing just one unearned run and one walk while striking out 14 including the final seven batters of the game.

“I didn’t really know much about her when she came here and moved to Middletown,” said Hoffman prior to getting soaked in Gatorade. “It’s funny, when she got here she said to us, ‘I want to be part of something special and not have to be one of the top two or three players on the team,’ but she was. Without here I don’t know where we’d be. Take her away are we in this game today? Probably not.”

Bell has been on an incredible run. Before Tuesday’s game in a span of a week she mowed down 79 batters in 36 innings pitched, including 20 in 10 innings in the Lions Shore Conference Tournament 3-2 quarterfinal win against Lacy. Including Tuesday’s totals, Bell has struck out 93 over her last 43 innings.

“Last week, I was on a roll,” Bell said. “I guess it was the adrenaline, I just really wanted to win. We don’t want our season to end yet. Today I knew it was really important and wanted to come out strong.”

“Our bats haven’t been clicking how I’d like them to the last four or five games,” Hoffman said. “We kind of got into this lull where we thought if we got just one run would be okay (because of how Bell was pitching). She’s definitely saved us in some tough spots this year.”

The last two season’s Middletown North was the No. 1 seed in the sectionals but came up short both times. Two years ago they lost 4-2 to fourth-seeded South Plainfield in the semifinals then last season they again lost to Tigers but this time it was a heartbreaking 3-2 loss in the final.

So you can see why this win is special, especially for the seniors on the team, including third baseman Milena Wilton, who as a four-year starter and has suffered through three years of state playoff eliminations to finally get to the top of the mountain.

“This means so much because we had that bitterness in our hearts from losing the last few years,” Wilton said as she fought back tears. “This year, we said we’re done losing. We were going to get that state title, we needed it.”

“I love these seniors to death,” Bell said. “All the underclassmen, we just wanted to do it for the seniors.”

In the Lions four-run second inning Wilton drilled a run scoring triple into the right-centerfield gap to push their lead to 4-0. For the year she leads the Lions in just about every offensive category including: batting average (.471), RBI (31), triples (4), doubles (18) and runs (36).

“Coming into this year everyone said we might’ve lost the three best softball players in the history of the school in Riley Kernan, Lizzy Dorsa and Kayla Gallo,” Hoffman said. “Everyone was asking what are we going to do without them and me and Milena would say ‘I don’t know, what are we going to do?’ But when we talked privately we knew we were going to get back to that game and prove everyone wrong. That’s what she wanted to do and she did it. Nobody cares more about softball than Milena.”

The Lions took a 4-0 lead in the second inning taking advantage of couple of miscues by Gov. Livingston to score all the runs they needed.

Junior centerfielder Cara McNulty led off the inning with sinking line drive that got by the right fielder for a triple and Adriana Cerbo followed with a walk. Bell then hit into a fielder’s choice grounder to the second baseman with McNulty running on the play. The throw home beat McNulty but she knocked the ball out of the catcher’s glove on the slide for a 1-0 lead.

Junior first baseman Ashley Kofsky moved the runners over to second and third with a sacrifice bunt for the first out of the inning and Sam Kanach lined a shot right at the centerfielder, who dropped the ball for a two-run error. Wilton then brought Kanach home with her RBI triple giving the Lions a 4-0 lead.

“Last year we were in this spot and went down early and couldn’t come back so we needed to score first,” Hoffman said. “If we scored first we were going to ride Malori home and that’s what we did.”

Gov. Livingston closed the gap to 4-1 scoring an unearned run in the fifth inning. Evan Pallitta led off the inning dropping a soft single into short right field and was sacrificed to second on a bunt by Jessica Schmidt.

Julian Lopes struck out for the second out before Alyssa Lombardi beat out a slow roller to the shortstop for an infield hit with Pallitta scoring on throwing error to first on the play.

Bell then struck out Jamie Belfer to end the inning and struck the side in order in both the sixth and seventh innings giving her seven straight K’s to close it out and 14 for the game.

The Lions (25-4) job is far from over though. They travel to undefeated St. John Vianney (24-0) today (Wednesday) for a Shore Conference Tournament semifinal game before facing the North I, Group III champion, Indian Hills (28-3) Thursday in the NJSIAA Group III semifinals. Middletown North is ranked fifth in the state while Indians Hill is ranked seventh and the Lancers No. 2.

“Is Wednesday a big game? Yes, but Thursday is bigger,” Hoffman said. “We’re going to have to have some discussions about what we want to do tomorrow (Wednesday) because we want Malori fresh for Thursday.”

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