MONMOUTH — The Monmouth softball team had the perfect antidote for a pair of recent tough losses: Play your best game of the season against a quality opponent.
The Mustangs got some timely hitting, including a three-run homer from Haylee Langlois, and played their best defensive game of the year Wednesday afternoon in downing Carrabec 6-2.
The musical chairs among Mountain Valley Conference teams continues in the Class C South standings continues as Monmouth is now 4-3 and Carrabec is 6-3.
“This is a huge win for us because we’re a really young team,” Langlois said. “I think this boosted our self esteem a lot.”
Poor first innings have been a problem for the Mustangs ikn a recent one-tun loss to Winthrop and an extra inning loss to Spruce Mountain. They spotted the Cobras a run in the first when Sam Lebeau walked an eventually scored on an error. But they settled down after that, playing errorless ball, and more importantly answering with three runs in the bottom of the first.
After an out, Emily Kaplan laid down a perfect bunt for hit and Emily Chasse followed with a single to left, bringing Langlois to the plate. The left-handed hitting junior got down a strike before launching a shot over the fence in left center to make it 3-1 with her second homer of the season..
“In that situation I just need to relax,” she said. “I know I’m in the four spot for a reason, to get runners in. My goal is to hit the gaps and get runners in. If I try to overpower (the ball) it doesn’t do me any good.”
The Mustangs made several strong plays in the field in support of pitcher Emily Chasse who scattered nine hits and fanned three.
“We had our defense cranked up in this game and it’s so fun to see,” Monmouth coach Dave Kaplan said.
The Mustangs ended a threat in the third by turning a 4-6-3 double play when freshman Emma Jonhnson made the play of the game when she robbed Melanie Clark with a diving catch down the right-field line. Shortstop Mariah Herr also dug a couple of balls out of the deep hole to record outs and left fielder Deanna Bauer threw out Bailey Dunphy at home to end the sixth inning.
“You just threw out the best runner in the league,” Kaplan yelled to Bauer.
Dunphy was trying to score from second on Paige Giroux’s sharp hit at Bauer in left.
“That was a bad call on my part,” Carrabec coach Heath Cowan said. “We’re down four runs, we’ve got to hold her up there and let Mackenzie have a shot to hit the ball. We didn’t play particularly well and we didn’t coach particularly well. The other team just beats you when that happens.”
The Mustangs added three runs in the third. Kaplan opened with a base hit and went to third on Chasse’s sacrifice bunt. An error scored one run and two more came home on single from freshman Erin Gosselin.
“It was really good to beat them,” Chasse said. “we just came of a couple of tough losses. We knew we had to start winning some games and we knew this was a tough one. It came alive today.”
Baker had three hits, including a triple for the Cobras while Kaplan had a pair of hits and scored twice for the Mustangs.
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