Stevens catcher Erica Everson blocks the plate and tags out Central's Kassy Herding after a squeeze bunt in the third inning Monday night. Stevens edged Central 3-1 in a game filled with outstanding defensive plays. (Photo Jake Nordbye/IDS)

Now that was a great softball game!

Stevens beat Central 3-1 at the Parkview softball complex Monday night, but the score was the least interesting part of the game.

Great pitching and great defense defined the game, on both sides.

On the mound, Stevens’ sophomore, Megan Green, matched Central’s senior ace, Bretton Lien, pitch for pitch all night long.

“I’m so proud of Megan, to come out and pitch a gem. She did such a great job tonight.” Stevens head coach Eva Burley told IDS after the game. “Her presence, her mental strength, to be able to attack an offensive powerhouse like Central, I thought she did very well.”

“We were trying our best to keep their hitters off balance, and Megan had several pitches working for her tonight. They weren’t able to sit on any pitch or look for a single pitch. She used a balance of pitches to keep their hitters off balance. Her drop-out was working, her change was working, her drop-change was working. Any time a pitcher has as much mental strength as she had tonight, and is as well prepared as she was, she’s going to give our offense a chance to win the game.”

After holding the Central bats in check for the first two innings, Green flinched in the third. She walked Kassy Herding, who moved to second on Nicol Griffith’s sacrifice bunt. Taylor Bauer singled to left, and Green found herself with runners on first and third with one out. Maddie Merriam laid a squeeze bunt down the third base line. Stevens third baseman Ashley Jennings charged the ball and threw to Erica Everson whose block and sweeping tag stuffed the rally. It was a bang-bang play that changed the momentum of the game.

With one out in the bottom of the third, Stevens sophomore right fielder, Melissa Nieland lashed a line drive triple down the right field line. “At first, it’s kind of scary to hit against Bretton.” Nieland explained after the game. “She throws so hard, and she has a lot of motion on her pitches. That pitch was outside. We’ve really been working on going oppo, so I went with it.”

Kalie Maiden singled through the hole to score Nieland and Stevens was on the board.


(Photos Jake Nordbye/IDS)

In the fourth inning, Green calmed down and handled Central with ease. Stevens loaded the bases in the bottom of the fourth on a double by Everson, a hit batsman, and a single to left by Taylor Tschetter. But Lien choked off the bases loaded rally by getting Lexi Marsico to fly out to center field.

After four fast, thrilling innings, Stevens was up 1-0.

In the bottom of the fifth, Stevens looked like they had finally found their range against Lien.

Nieland lined her second hit of the night to center field. Maiden bunted her to second. Brittney Geerson scored Nieland with a single to left, and Everson dumped a single to left to put Stevens runners on first and second with one out. It looked like Stevens would break the game open, but Central second baseman Nicole Griffith dove far to her left into the hole to grab a hard ground ball off the bat of Green, and from her knees threw back-handed to first for the out. The play was spectacular.

No sooner had Central come to bat than Maddie Merriam hammered a hard line drive up the middle. Stevens’ second baseman Abby Walz dove to her right and speared the ball as it passed her for the first out of the inning. “I saw it off the bat and I knew that she hit it really hard. It was all instinct. I had no time to think.” Walz’ grab was like sticking a knife in Central’s heart.

After the game, Eva Burley reflected on the defense turned in by Stevens.

“I was very pleased with our defensive play. But I was not surprised. Our girls work very, very hard to make ‘difference maker’ plays. There’s a quotation from Thomas Jefferson that ‘The harder you work, the luckier you get.’ Well, maybe we got lucky tonight defensively, but that’s because we work hard.”

Stevens added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth inning when Tschetter doubled to right, and Lexi Marsico singled through the hole at shortstop. Nieland scored Teschetter on a sacrifice fly to right. Stevens was on the edge of breaking the game wide open, but true to the character of the game, Central’s catcher, Lexi Deneke, made a spectacular diving catch on a pop fly from Maiden to save a run and end the inning.

Central scored once in the 7th inning, but it was too little, too late.

The Raiders are now up 2-0 on the Cobblers in this season’s cross-town series, with two games to play. But either game could have gone the other way, and both teams have firmly established themselves among the elite teams in the state as the state tournament approaches.