Softball: Gardiner shuts down Erskine Academy in B South prelim

GARDINER — Don’t be fooled by the Gardiner softball team’s error-free effort in a 6-2 Class B South preliminary round win over Erskine Academy on Tuesday. The second-seeded Tigers didn’t even have their best defensive alignment covering the Somerville Field diamond.

Though junior pitcher Brooke Gero combined with battery mate Dakota Lovely in tossing a three-hitter at the No. 15 Eagles (3-14), recording only two strikeouts in the complete game, the Tigers will likely field a very different looking defense in Saturday’s regional quarterfinals.

Expect Gardiner (15-2) to have Gero at shortstop, Lovely at first base, lefty Laney Cooley in the circle and Dewey Clary working behind home plate in the next round.

“Defensively, when we show up to play, we’re a shutdown team,” said Gardiner coach Ryan Gero. “Our key the whole year is to just play one inning at a time, win the innings. We don’t have to put up 15 runs in an inning to win the games.”

Whoever was playing defense — wherever they were playing it — didn’t matter much in Tuesday’s opening round of the tournament.

Gero got off to a shaky start, walking a pair of batters in surrendering a run to Erskine in the top of the first inning.

The Tigers answered with three in the home half of the first, including a pair on Lovely’s RBI single to right.

“I was struggling,” Gero admitted. “Sometimes in really high-stakes games, I get a little nervous. I don’t know if it’s like that for everybody.”

“She was a little timid,” said Lovely, who went 3 for 4 in the victory and was the only Tiger to record multiple hits. “She was going really quickly, working too fast. We got in the dugout and talked about it, and she slowed down and pitched a really good game after that.”

Gardiner’s Brooke Gero throws a pitch against Erskine Academy during a Class B South softball preliminary game Tuesday in Gardiner. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

By the time the Tigers tacked on a single run in the third and two more in the fourth, it was more than enough support for Gero, who found her groove after the clumsy beginning. She ended the first with a strikeout of Brianna Barrett to touch off a string of eight straight Erskine batters retired and — after surrendering a run-scoring double to Kate Bourdon with two outs in the fourth — finished the game by setting down 10 of the final 12 Eagles she faced.

Behind Gero, right fielder Taylor Hawkins and center fielder Maddie Inman each had a pair of putouts. Shortstop Dewey and second baseman Grace Plourde were involved in eight of Gardiner’s 21 recorded outs.

“I just put all the trust I can into my fielders,” Brooke Gero said. “If I can’t hit my curve, or my screw, or my rise or my drop, all I think about is pitching it across the plate. My teammates will have my back.”

Defense wasn’t one-sided. Erskine’s Kenzie Kutniewski was a human vacuum cleaner at shortstop, racking up six assists and one putout.

Unfortunately, Kutniewski couldn’t get to everything. All six Tiger runs on the afternoon were unearned as the Eagles made four errors behind pitcher Hannah Huff.

“It’s all about playing error-free softball,” said Lovely noting that a win over Brunswick on Saturday provided a confidence boost. “It’s about winning the inning. If you win every inning, you’ll win the game. It’s all about having the right mindset as a team, and we’re playing really well together right now.

“We’re together. We’ve got each other, and as long as you’ve got each other the wins will keep coming.”

Gardiner finished with 11 hits but stranded nine runners on, including four in scoring position.

“We left too many girls on base today,” Ryan Gero said. “We hit the ball well, we just hit it right to the shortstop who made play after play after play after play. What do you do? Hat’s off to her, but if we can find gaps and be more selective at the plate, that’s when we have more success (offensively).”