Quantcast

Molloy looks for title a week after Game 1

By Dylan Butler

The bases were loaded, there was one out and her team was clinging to a 3-1 lead in the opening game of the CHSAA Class A Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan championship series. Janelle Boyd was the definition of calm in the circle, but a host of thoughts were dancing in her head.

“I know what I did wrong, why they hit me,” the junior pitcher on the Archbishop Molloy softball team thought. “Pitch like there’s nobody on base, take it a pitch at a time.”

And then it happened. A slow roller back to Boyd. Once again, her mind raced.

“Stay down, get the ball, don’t let it go through your legs,” she said.

Boyd did all of the above, inducing an inning-ending 1-2-3 double play, killing St. Francis Prep’s fifth-inning rally leading the Stanners to a 3-1 win against their rivals to capture the opening game of the best-of-three series last Thursday at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.

Molloy could win its second straight B/Q title with a Game 2 victory Thursday at Floyd Bennett Field. A St. Francis Prep win would force a decisive third game, which would be played immediately after.

The pressure is squarely on St. Francis Prep, although the tables were turned last year when the Stanners rallied from a Game 1 loss to sweep a doubleheader and win the program’s first-ever varsity softball title.

“We’re a little nervous still,” Jen Angelone said, “but really happy.”

Boyd, who was the hero of last year’s championship run, went the distance. She allowed just four hits, including a leadoff single by Krystil Hofmann in the first inning, striking out six and retiring the last seven batters she faced.

Hofmann also tossed a complete-game four hitter, but a leadoff walk to speedy Katie Shea opened the door for Molloy to score two runs in the third inning to take a commanding 3-0 lead.

“One thing you don’t want to do is let her get on because you know she’s got speed, you know she’ll not only take two, she’ll take three (bases) on you in a blink of the eye,” St. Francis Prep coach Ann Marie Rich said of Shea. “You have to try and slow them down and we just weren’t able to do that.”

Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler [email protected] or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 143.