NFA softball falls short against No. 10 North Branford
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The Norwich Free Academy softball team began a daunting stretch of six games in five days at North Branford on Thursday night. Along with the No. 10 Thunderbirds, who edged the Wildcats, 5-3, challenging tests from No. 4 Amity and No. 5 Waterford loom for NFA before the close of the regular season.
“We’re a little disappointed,” NFA coach Tim Walsh said after falling short against North Branford. “But at the end of the day we’ve got more games to win. We’ve got a big stretch coming up.”
The Wildcats (12-3), who had a nine-game winning streak snapped, fell behind 4-1 against North Branford before rallying for two runs in the fourth inning.
The T-Birds (15-1) were coming off their first loss of the season two nights before against No. 1 Masuk. North Branford, which competes in the Shoreline Conference, sits atop the CIAC Class S playoff rankings. c
“This is the first win that I can remember against NFA but we need to play programs like this,” North Branford coach Nick DeLizio said. “In the Shoreline we have some competitive games but we have to do a little bit of a reach so we have five out of conference games. We stacked the schedule this year. I wanted to test them.”
NFA grabbed an early lead in the top of the first when Sophie Miner drew a walk and stole second, Kenzie Rathbun (two hits) blooped a single past second base, and Aubrey Martin launched a sacrifice fly to score Miner for a 1-0 advantage.
The T-birds quickly answered in their half of the first. Adrianna Hills hit a deep fly ball to center field that Miner started to track. Miner, however, slipped on the wet grass and Hills raced to third for a triple. Lexi Falcioni followed with a line drive RBI single to right to tie it at 1.
“We had some bad luck,” Walsh said. “Sophie slips on the mud and a couple of times we got a little jumpy and that affected the location of the throws.”
Hills blasted another triple in the second inning that scored two runs and Falcioni’s RBI groundout gave North Branford a 4-1 lead.
NFA responded in the top of the fourth. Autumn Romains led off with a double to left center and scored on Amelia Driscoll’s pinch-hit double. Jayden Johnston bunted Driscoll and Miner’s RBI infield hit closed the gap to 4-3.
“That’s the thing about this team, they’re very resilient and they're not afraid of the moment,” Walsh said. “They do their thing and work hard.”
North Branford added a big insurance run in the bottom of the sixth when Madi DiStefano hit a two strike, two out offering from NFA pitcher Dakota Bourdon that landed on the left field line for an RBI double.
T-birds pitcher Lauren Vitarisi, who scattered six hits while striking out 10, tossed a 1-2-3 seventh inning.
“She hit her sports really well,” Walsh said. “She had a changeup that we were out in front of all day and couldn’t quite time. We didn’t execute quite as often as they did and that was the bottom line. North Branford’s a good team and they took advantage of it.”
This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Norwich Free Academy falls short against No. 10 North Branford
