LEWISTON — The North Atlantic Conference tournament begins May 1, so Maine college softball teams routinely play six games over three days this time of year. UMaine-Farmington went winless for the weekend, and the players were fed up.

“Overall, the morale is better today,” UMF catcher Meryl Bond said. “This weekend, we had four tough losses, and we really bounced back from it — like, this is not an option anymore. We have to step it up. We have to come together as a team.”

After being handcuffed by Cony grad Sonja Morse in a 2-1 Thomas victory in the opener, the Beavers got exactly what they needed in the nightcap: A great performance and a big win against an NAC opponent. UMF took game two, 8-0, to earn a split of the doubleheader at Bates College.

Morse struck out 10 and did not walk a batter. Her start was not auspicious, as Shelby Bryant led off the bottom of the first inning with a single and advanced to third on an error. Bond followed with an RBI single, and the Beavers led 1-0 after two batters.

But those two batters were the only ones to reach base against Morse. She retired the next 21 in a row, and finished off the one-run win with two strikeouts in the bottom of the seventh.

“Sonja had her best outing,” Thomas coach Terry Parlin said. “I think she located as well as she has. I think most everything was working. Her fastball was on. She feels pretty good about her outing, and we felt good about playing good defense and coming back with the two runs we had to have, and getting her her first college win. That part was great.”

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Morse had scored the tying run in the fourth on a two-out single by Jordan Agger-Barnes. In the top of the sixth, Messalonskee grad Briana Warren led off with a double and was on third with two out and Korrie Laren up. Laren had crushed a walk-off homer to beat Husson on Saturday, but Agger-Barnes was on deck. Laren drilled a shot off the top of the fence for the game-winning double.

Thomas did not get those key, two-out hits in the second game despite facing the same pitcher. After allowing two runs on seven hits in seven innings in game one, UMF junior Emily Vitone pitched all five innings in game two, giving up no runs and three hits. Bond said Vitone was throwing as hard in her 12th inning of the day as she did in the first game.

“She was still hitting her spots really well,” Bond said. “It was same speed, same places.”

“She threw amazing this weekend,” UMF coach Amy Jones added. “The thing that makes me happy about Emily is she’s doing the extra stuff. She’s going to the gym and doing extra workouts. It pays off, and we can tell. I had a couple pitchers warming up, thinking she was going to get tired, but she came in and finished it off very well.”

As they did against Morse, the Beavers bunched their hits — although this time, the bunches were much larger. UMF scored three runs in the bottom of the second on six hits, including RBI singles by Bryant, Bond and Katie Clark. The Beavers then ended the game with five runs on five hits in the bottom of the fifth.

“They feed off one another’s success, which is so exciting,” Jones said. “It’s something I’m going to be looking forward to for the rest of the season. They build each other’s confidence up.”

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The game-ending run came when Bond laid down a squeeze bunt with the bases loaded and Mt. Blue grad Kiana Thompson scored ahead of the throw. If that game was just what UMF needed, Parlin is pretty sure what Thomas needs.

“We’re looking to obviously hit the ball harder,” Parlin said. “We need to score more than two runs in two games. Without getting some runs, everybody’s going to be afraid of losing the game once we’re down three or four runs.

“I thought we did a great job coming back from 3-0 against Husson, and I thought we were going to come back today. We had a few opportunities, we hit the ball right at them, (and) they made the plays. I just think we need to make things happen and don’t rely on the other team making errors. We need to take the game instead of waiting for (things) to happen.”

Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243

mdifilippo@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Matt_DiFilippo


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