Softball Demolishes Dana Hall

This past saturday the varsity softball team took to its home plate to play its second game of the season against Dana Hall School. The girls had an incredible win, scoring fifteen runs, while holding Dana Hall to only one. Big Red played the game in perfect, high-sixties weather, and the outfield fence was lined with fans eager to watch the Exeter girls defeat their opponents.

In the practices leading up to the game, the girls focused on practicing a lot of basic mechanics such as infield/outfield drills to keep everything simple. “Coach Thompson really emphasized getting the basics down and executing the basic plays,” lower Katie Moon said. The team is relatively young, with only a few returners from last year, and everyone is getting used to playing on the field together. This focus on fundamentals was to ensure that the team didn’t make small errors that would lead to larger problems, especially in a game setting.

The girls have also been making sure they hustle and have intense practices that reflect the pace of a game. “Us scoring so many runs shows how driven we were to continue playing the game to the best of our abilities, and that’s a really important trait in sports,” upper Amanda Harris explained.

One of the standout players, prep Taylor Nelson, was praised by many of her teammates. “One play that really stood out to me was Taylor’s first hit­­—on her second pitch, she hit a triple that everyone thought was going over the fence! After that, we really got our bats going, and we carried our momentum into the field to win that game,” prep Riley Valashinas said.

Another standout player was senior Stacey Harris. “[She] made some great plays at first, including stabbing a line drive right at [Harris’s] face that I know I would have ducked at,” senior Captain Juliana Merullo said.

The team calls working on the basics “everydays” and will continue to focus on them in their coming practices. The girls had to be inside for the practices this past Monday and Tuesday because of the rain, and have been limited to working in the empty ice rinks and the fieldhouse. In future practices, the focus will be on smaller mechanics like footwork, continuing to keep everything simple.

“I think all we need for a clean game is the repetition and consistency,” Moon said. The girls have also been focusing on hitting, to make sure they are prepared if they start to face faster pitching, so that they can drive in runs no matter what team they have to face. The goal is to take everything one play, one hit and one pitch at a time. “It’s really a game of who can make the least errors while making the other team make more errors than you,” Harris explained.

“We just want to continue keeping it simple, and making sure we nail the basics, because that has been working for us so far!” Merullo concluded.