Mighty Oaks softball team comes from behind in both games to sweep Northampton, winning streak at 10; baseball loses eight-run lead in loss to No. 3 team in country
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNSVILLE – The one thing the Salem CC softball team hasn’t faced since returning from its season-opening trip to the Carolinas is adversity.
The Mighty Oaks had, as they say in the South, a mean mess of it Sunday and came through it like a team that hasn’t lost in two weeks.
The Oaks trailed three times in their doubleheader with Northampton at Watson Field and rallied every time to score an 11-10, 10-2 sweep to run their current winning streak to 10 games and remain undefeated in their new home. It was the first time they trailed at any point in any game since returning from the Carolinas.
In the opener they trailed 6-3 in the third inning and 8-7 in the fifth. They fell behind 2-0 after two innings of the nightcap before Ella Hayes blasted a three-run homer in the third to give the Oaks (12-4) the lead for good.
They pounded out 20 hits in the opener. Hayes went 5-for-5 with four RBIs and Karyn Trice went 4-for-4. Kiki Beukman and KC Garcia both went 3-for-4. But for all the offense they produced, they still needed ace Morgan Mecham to come out of the bullpen to get through a harrowing seventh inning.
They walked off the nightcap on Courtney Hoggard’s bases-loaded double in the fifth that got through a charging outfielder and cleared the bases although only two runs were needed for the run-rule margin. Hoggard went 4-for-4 in the game after being the only Salem player to go hitless in the opener.
“Seeing it for the first time we put into perspective that if we’re behind or we’ve got to battle back and forth we’re able to do it, but most importantly they’ve got to keep playing for each other and you saw it there,” Oaks coach Angel Rodriguez said. “That’s key right there, just backing up your pitcher on defense, trying to make the next play, if someone’s a little down just picking them up and running from there.
“You definitely start turning to some of the returners or some key people who are going to come up in big moments and see how they’re going to do and they handled it well. They came and took it one pitch at a time and just kept it rolling. They didn’t panic, they just kept going and let the game come to them and it was good.”
With the lineup Rodriguez has at his disposal, the Mighty Oaks really aren’t out of any game. They’ve outscored their opponents 106-19 during the 10-game winning streak and are batting a torrid .515 as a team.
“One thing we learned from the Carolinas that we kept consistent is when we have big moments or we need something going we always tend to find ourselves right around the beginning or middle of the lineup,” Rodriguez said. “If we can keep doing that, it’s going to be just great for us.”
The Oaks led the opener 3-0, but the Spartans wiped it out with a six-run third on the strength of back-to-back homers by Hannah Karc and Shana Guliandolo to open inning and Chelsea Melkowits’ three-run shot three batters later.
Salem retook the lead with four in the bottom of the inning, but Northampton grabbed it right back with two in the fourth. The Oaks took the lead for good in the fifth on Hayes’ game-tying double, a go-ahead RBI single by Haylee Pickrell and an RBI double by Callie Rozak.
The teams traded runs in the sixth. The Spartans loaded the bases against Mecham in the seventh and made it 11-10 with one out, only the second run on the Oaks ace’s ledger since the team returned from the Carolinas. They still had the bases loaded, but Mecham got the final two outs on strikeout and pop to short.
“I think we did a very good job keeping our energy up,” Hoggard said. “When we got down, we stayed up (emotionally). When people were struggling, they picked them up. I know I was struggling for a while (3-for-13 in her previous four games), but they picked me up and I came out in the second game and did really good.
“Our coaches this year have told us you get down you’ve got to keep your foot on the gas pedal no matter what. We can’t look back. You’ve got to keep moving forward.”
The Oaks never wavered when they fell behind 2-0 in the nightcap. Hayes put them back on top with her third homer in four games and they continued to pour it on. They pushed across three in the fourth and walked it off in the fifth.
“I was never worried about it,” Hayes said. “Even in practice there will be times where there’s adversity and we come back and are fully prepared. I think we all just really wanted it, too.
“I love being on a winning streak. There is pressure, you don’t want that to end, it’s also fun. I think we’re having a lot of fun and that’s why we’re continuing the streak instead of feeling the pressure.”
Softball
GAME 1
SALEM CC 11, NORTHAMPTON CC 10
| Northampton CC (0-1) | 006 | 201 | 1- | 10 | 17 | 0 |
| Salem CC (11-4) | 124 | 031 | x- | 11 | 20 | 1 |
SALEM CC 10, NORTHAMPTON CC 2
| Northampton CC (0-2) | 110 | 00- | 2 | 7 | 1 |
| Salem CC (12-4) | 004 | 33- | 10 | 12 | 1 |
Baseball
LINCROFT — The Mighty Oaks led the No. 3 team in the country by eight runs in the fourth inning, but couldn’t hold it and fell to Brookdale 14-10 in the rubber game of their three-game series.
The Oaks won the series opener 7-6 on a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth and appeared headed for an even easier win in the getaway game, but it got away from them under a hail of walks and errors.
“It was just a rough day,” Salem coach John Bolt said. “We didn’t play our best baseball.”
BROOKDALE CC 14, SALEM CC 10
| Salem CC (7-10) | 007 | 300 | 000- | 10 |
| Brookdale CC (18-1) | 200 | 800 | 22x- | 14 |
Cover photo: Salem CC’s Courtney Hoggard prepares to connect with her walk-off hit in the bottom of the fifth inning of Sunday’s second game with Northampton CC. The Mighty Oaks won both games to extend their winning streak to 10 games.
Riverview Sports News 