MHS Girls Softball Team Keeps Winning Streak Alive With 10-1 Win Over Moses Brown

The Middletown High School Softball Team went into Saturday's game against Moses Brown with a 6-0 overall record and in first place in Division II South.  

Moses Brown jumped on the board early with a run in the top of the first on a bizarre call from the home plate umpire that brought the baserunner from third home.  That was Moses Brown's only run of the day.

Grace Eng took the mound for the Middletown Islanders and pitched extremely well the entire game.  However, there was little offense to show from the Islanders, until the top of the fifth.  

Grace Eng stepped to the plate with two outs and two on and absolutely crushed a ball over the left center fence for a three-run home run.  The Islander bench exploded with cheers as they rushed to home plate to greet their hero.

This put the Islanders up 3-1 going into the bottom of the fifth.

Grace Eng took the mound in the 5th and had a 1,2,3 inning.  The top of the sixth saw Glenn Murphy rip a ball into center and ending up with an RBI stand up triple.  Nina Traglia followed that with an RBI double of her own to score Murphy and give the Islanders a little breathing room, up 5-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth.

The Islanders are never short on cheering for their team, by way of frequency or volume.  They cheered so loud in the fifth, they appeared to set off a car alarm behind their dugout.  It may have been an unseen truck, but the timing was hysterical and brought some laughs from the crowd and the dugout.

Grace Eng then simply took care of business.  She retired the Moses Brown side in the sixth on 3 pitches.  Sandwiched in between Eng's shut down performance on the mound, she drove in another two runs in the top of the seventh.  The Islanders added another 3 in the seventh before Eng returned to the mound to retire the last three batters on three pitches once again and end the game.

The final score was 10-1 with a cogent Islander victory.

POSTGAME

I talked to Grace Eng after the game and asked her to take me through the at bat in which she blasted her three -un homer.  "I knew she was going to try and get me and I was looking more for an inside pitch, I figured she'd try to jam me, and once I saw the pitch I just turned my hips and just hit it.  I didn't think it was going to go out.  I thought it was too high.  I thought the fielder was going to get it, but then I realized it went over the fence and I was like, Oh my gosh!  This is like exactly what I wanted to do.  You know we were down at that point.   I heard my teammates cheering, and so I just wanted to prove that we didn't come here to lose.  I just wanted to be help out, help my team, and be a leader."  

I then asked her for her thoughts on her complete game shutout on the mound.

"I thought about that run.  That dead ball.  I obviously didn't put enough on it, and it bounced in front of Glenn.  I'm not going to focus on that.  It's the past.  I'm just going to continue to work on my pitches so a situation like that doesn't happen again."

Head Coach Robin Ramey said she feels that the team can do better.  "It started out slow for us.  If you look at what we've done so far, we haven't really scored a whole lot of runs this year and this team is certainly capable of doing that.  The game today, you know, we were down 1-0 and we just couldn't hit.  Then Grace stepped up and blasted that ball over the fence.  You know for a while we were scratching and crawling for hits.  We were swinging and missing.  We were swinging out of our shoes.  You know we just weren't swinging the way that I knew we could.  So they got up there and were more relaxed and started swinging with confidence and that was good to see."

With the win the Islanders now stand at (7-0) overall and (6-0) in their Division, with a game and a half lead over second place Portsmouth.

UP NEXT

The next game for Middletown is on Monday, May 2, when they travel to Tiverton.  First pitch is at 4 p.m.

With the loss, Moses Brown falls to (2-5) overall and (1-6) in Division II East play.  The will try to regroup on Monday when they host Rogers.  That game has a 4 p.m. start.

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