BATH — Last year, Morse ended Oak Hill’s softball season in the Class B South quarterfinals.
The No. 5 Raiders traveled to Bath on Thursday, with hopes to return the favor.
Again, though, No. 4 Morse proved to be too much, thanks to timely hitting and the arm of Dory Kulis, as the fourth-seeded Shipbuilders blanked Oak Hill 7-0 on Thursday afternoon.
Kulis surrendered two hits, while fanning 10 Raiders in the complete game performance. The sophomore was also part of the three-four-five hitters for Morse that went 6-for-9. The Shipbuilders, as a team, pounded out 11 hits.
Morse improves to 13-4 and will face No. 1 Wells (12-5) in the semifinals on Saturday. The Warriors defeated No. 9 Cape Elizabeth in the quarterfinals.
Oak Hill ends its season at 13-4.
While the temperatures felt like an early-season game, that was the only similarity. Each team brought playoff intensity and solid defense over the first three innings.
Morse threatened in the bottom of the first. A leadoff single by Brook Kulis was followed by a one-out knock by her sister, Dory, and the Shipbuilders had runners on second and third with one out.
Clean-up hitter Marissa Parks lined a Sadie Waterman pitch to straight-away center, but not deep enough to score the runner from third. Waterman got Abby Carpenter to ground out to third base to end the inning.
Dory Kulis pitched her way out of no-out jam in the Raiders’ half of the second. After a leadoff single by Molly Flaherty, Abby Nadeau was hit by a pitch, putting two runners on for Oak Hill with no outs. The next batter popped out to third base, and Dory Kulis struck out the next two hitters to retire the side.
The Morse sophomore struck out the next batter to lead off the top of the third inning and then got help from her defense as second baseman Julia Goddard made a diving catch behind first base in shallow right field for the out.
“That was amazing,” Dory Kulis said of the freshman infielder’s catch. “I was so proud for her. We have started to come together on defense and play really well defensively.”
Meanwhile Waterman kept the Morse hitters in check, allowing just a second-inning hit to Goddard over the second and third innings.
However, the fourth inning was a different story. Parks led off with a long single to right-center, followed by a hit to right field by Carpenter. A sacrifice bunt attempt by the Shipbuilders was mishandled, allowing Parks to score from second for the game’s first run. A grounder to third by the next hitter was thrown away during a run down, sending home the second run of the frame.
“Defensively, we made a couple of miscues with runners on base, and it really hurt us,” Oak Hill coach Allyson Collins said.
With runners on first and second, Goddard came to plate, and after two attempts to lay down a sacrifice bunt were unsuccessful, she took a two-strike pitch and rapped an RBI single to right field for a Morse 3-0 lead.
“I told her she has two tries to get it down, if she couldn’t, then hit a ground ball to the right side to move the runners,” Morse head coach Will Laffely said.
Dory Kulis closed out the fifth inning with a pair of strikeouts, giving her seven.
“In our league, we don’t see pitching of this caliber very much, especially of that speed, and we couldn’t lay off that high heat,” Collins said. “If we could have done that, I think we would have done better, but we just couldn’t lay off it.”
“I play with many of them on a travel team, so it helps I know what they like and don’t,” Dory Kulis said. “That helped out a lot, but I still have to go out and execute.”
Morse hitters were at it once again in the fifth, leading off the inning with three straight hits off Waterman. A Dory Kulis double and another Parks single set up a two-run base hit by Carpenter, the ’Builder’s eighth, knocking Waterman out of the game.
“She throws a drop ball. We have a couple of girls that can throw it, so for five days straight, that’s all we worked on,” Laffely said. “What we were trying to do was look for the bottom of the ball and maybe hit the middle of the ball. As the game went on, we started to get our timing down.”
“She’s a workhorse out there and does anything asked of her,” Collins said of Waterman. “She did her part, giving 110 percent. She could have worked the whole game, but I wanted to give them a different look.”
Morse plated two more runs with an RBI hit by catcher Paige Faulkingham and a run-scoring double by Madeline Mitchell to take a 7-0 lead.
Dory Kulis did the rest, allowing an infield single, while striking out three hitters over the final two innings for the shutout.
“The kids have a lot of faith when she’s on the mound,” Laffely said. “Nothing against our other pitcher Marissa, because she leads so much from the shortstop position.”
Parks also led at the plate, as the senior finished with two hits. Dory Kulis also had two hits, including a double, while Carpenter and Goddard each had a pair of singles.
Morse, whom lost in the semifinals to Fryeburg a year ago, carries a nine-game win streak heading into Saturday’s clash with Wells, and Thursday’s win only boosts the Shipbuilders’ confidence more.
“It definitely does,” Dory Kulis said. “We had a rough patch, but we’re on a win-streak now.”
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