PLYMOUTH – In tight tournament softball, one blink is all it takes for someone to move on and someone else to go home.
Oyster River High School’s Addy Veno scored the game’s only run in the top of the third inning on an error off the bat of her twin sister Mady’s groundball down the first-base line and lifted the No. 3 Bobcats past No. 2 Kingswood, 1-0, in Tuesday’s Division II semifinal at Plymouth State University’s Chase Field.
Oyster River (17-3) will play in Saturday’s Division II state final at Plymouth State University (4:30 p.m.) against No. 1 and defending champion Coe-Brown (17-1).
Coe_Brown advanced with a 4-0 win over No. 5 Bow in the late semifinal. The rivals split their set during the season. Oyster River handed the Bears their only loss in the opener, 5-1. Coe-Brown, winners of 17 straight, won the rematch in Northwood, 3-2.
Veno comes out on top of pitcher’s duel
Addy Veno outdueled Kingswood ace Morgyn Stevens in a game where both girls went the distance. Veno allowed no runs on two hits, walked one and struck out four. Stevens gave up one hit (to Veno), walked one and struck out 10.
The winning run almost looked like it wasn’t going to happen. The first two batters in the third went down on a foul out and a strikeout, bringing up the top of the order and Addy Veno.
She launched her team’s only hit, a looping double that fell just inside the line in shallow right field. Mady Veno, the No. 2 hitter, hit a squibber down the first base line that looked like it might spin into foul territory. Stevens fielded the ball just before it got to the line as Veno ran by her and then shoveled a high throw past second baseman Adriane Teves covering the bag at first. The ball carried into shallow right, and Addy Veno never stopped running from second base and scored to put the Bobcats up 1-0.
“Gosh, I’ve got to somehow hit the ball,” said Mady Veno about her squibber, which led to the winning run. “I didn’t even think I hit it. I kind of just ran.”
Addy Veno had one plan in mind and that was to score from second base.
“I know I’ve got to make it home,” she said. “They had been making errors the whole game, bobbling on that play. I was just running like I was going to make it home. I was going home no matter what.”
‘Hard way to end season’
Kingswood coach Mike Shaw shook his head in the aftermath.
“One bad inning there cost us,” Shaw said.
While Shaw thought it might have looked like the ball was going foul, he couldn’t fault his pitcher for making the play.
“When you’re in the heat of the moment, you’re trying to make a play. You want the out,” he said. “It’s a gamble. The gamble didn’t pay off. I would have bet a million dollars it wouldn’t be 1-0. Not the way these girls hit. We’ve been averaging 10 hits a game. We hit the ball. They just made some really good plays in the field. It’s a hard way to see your season end.”
Scoring first gives Oyster River advantage
Getting that one run early was huge as far as Oyster River coach Chad Michaud was concerned.
“We said that we had to put the bat on the ball,” Michaud said. “We didn’t do it many times. But the few times we did, we made them make mistakes in the field. That’s really what ended up doing it. It’s not pretty, but it got the job done.”
Kate Michaud also reached on an infield error in the third, which moved Mady Veno to second, but that was it for Oyster as Stevens got the next batter on strikes. That was the only bump in an otherwise masterful game for Stevens, who retired the final 13 batters of the game. She retired the Bobcats in order in each of the final four innings.
Oyster River’s only other base runner came in the first inning when Michaud drew a two-out walk. There she stayed as Stevens picked up a strikeout to end the frame.
Veno escapes trouble in third
Addy Veno might not have been as overpowering as Stevens, but she was just as effective. She ran into one real spot of trouble in the third. Danika Chominski dropped a one-out single into center field, moved to second on a wild pitch and then went to third on a ground out to first. Teves drew a walk, but with runners on the corners, two outs and the dangerous Stevens on deck, Addy Veno wiggled out of the jam by enticing Caelynn Blattenberger to hit a soft fly ball to center.
Chominski had her team’s other hit, a two-out bloop single behind third base that Michaud at shortstop nearly caught with a fully-extended dive. A soft line out to second base ended the inning.
“It was by far the best game I’ve pitched,” Addy Veno said. “100 percent by far.”
“She got in her groove quick,” Mady Veno said of Addy. “When you’re coming into this, you need to have that snap in your pitching, and she did.
Oyster River shines defensively
Oyster River’s defense was on full display behind Addy Veno. They handled 17 chances without an error, including several of the spectacular variety. Right fielder Kaiya Mercier tracked down Stevens’ line-drive bullet in the fourth and then two batters later second baseman Morgan Trela made a sweet diving catch going toward the right field foul line behind first base for the final out.
“We watched film. We knew their weak spots,” Mady Veno said. “That really helped us. Honestly, we really worked as a team today.”
A big thing the Bobcats did according to Mady Veno was “every time we got in the dugout when we were going to hit, we said ‘We need three outs. We need to take it hitter by hitter.’”
The day before, the Bobcats watched game film of the 8-2 loss at Kingswood on May 15.
“It was the worst game we played this season,” Mady Veno said. “We literally took notes and wrote it all down. It just worked out.”
Mady Veno made several foul ball catches behind home plate, one a difficult one going towards her team’s dugout. In the sixth inning, Addy. Veno retired the top three batters in order on a foul out to her sister, a fly out to center and a pop up to third base.
In the seventh, she tied down the win with three consecutive outs. There was a fly out to right, a strikeout and a grounder to first to send the Bobcats to the championship for the second time in four years. When they won their first state title in program history in 2021, the Veno girls were freshman members of the team. Now they’re looking to complete their senior season with a set of bookend championships.