Small ball came up big for St. Joseph by the Sea.
The Vikings in years past have had a little more punch in their lineup. Now with a team built around speed they have resorted to more bunting and capitalizing on opponent’s mistakes.
“We have girls who can hit, don’t get me wrong,” Sea coach Mike Ponsiglione said. “We also have girls who can get the bunt down and sometimes you know we are going to put the bunt down and you still can’t defend it.”
After falling behind by a run in the first inning, the Vikings scored four times in the second on a combination of bunts, errors, productive outs and dunk hits. It was all ace Jackie Cautela needed as she struck out 12 in a 4-1 win over host Moore Catholic in CHSAA Staten Island softball Sunday afternoon. It is the first of three regular-season meetings between the two teams favored to competed for the Archdiocesan title.
“We use a lot of small ball and it usually works for us,” Cautela said. “We are going to keep doing it.”
Stefanie Abolt led off the second with a double and Vanessa Jioia bunted for a single to put runners on first and third. Jioia and Abolt both scored on a wild throw to first by Moore pitcher Gianna DeCesare on a Victoria Matrangolo bunt to make it 2-1 in favor of Sea (5-0), ranked No. 2 in the city by The Post.
Kristy Colangelo delivered a sac bunt and Alexandra Prescia had a pop up fall in between the pitcher and first baseman near the circle. Lianna Jordan, who also singled in the fifth, came through with a sac fly and Cautela brought home a run with a dunk single just over the bag at third to extend the lead to 4-1.
“It just fires you up more that they took the lead and you want to come back with something,” Jordan said.
Cuatela settled in after surrendering a run when Maxine Jasko, who had two hits, drilled a triple into into left center that scored Kelly Graham, who was hit by a pitch with two outs. After that, she allowed just one more hit and walk. She painted the corners with her curve and screw ball and overpowered hitters at times. An 8-8-6 double play on a fly ball to center helped her get out of trouble with one out in the fourth.
Ponsiglione credited DeCesare for making him go with the small-ball approach as his team struggled to string together hits The senior allowed just one earned run, scattered six hits, walked two and struck out three. She threw inside effectively late to limit Sea’s ability to bunt. The third-ranked Mavericks (3-1), the defending diocesan champs, felt they were undone by one bad frame.
“I feel confident about our pitching,” Moore coach Kristine Knuth said. “We just didn’t get hits today. That’s a big thing. We had to put the ball in play.”
Sea had no trouble doing that and reaped the benefits of doing so as its small-ball game opened the door for the decisive innings.
“You can apologize,” Ponsiglione said. “But if they can’t defend it we are going to take advantage of it and we are going to keep doing it.”