Top-Ranked Westhill Softball Falls to Conard

Momentum was clearly on the side of top-seeded .

The Vikings, defending Class LL softball champions, placed the first five hitters of the game on base.

The rocky beginning could have spelled disaster for No. 3 . Falling behind could have planted questions in its mind. Were the Chieftains in the same class as their downstate foes?

But defense has been the Chieftains’ forte and it didn’t waver when they needed it most.

They escaped the first-inning fracas, seized the initiative with clutch hitting and Conard pitcher Jess Dufault took command Monday night en route to a 4-1 win over the Stamford squad in the LL final at West Haven High’s Frank Biondi Field.

The championship was the first for the Chieftains (20-3), who finished the season with nine straight wins. Dufault was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

Westhill suffered only its second loss of the season, finishing the year at 23-2.

“It’s been an unbelievable run,” Conard coach Tommy Verrengia said. “We didn’t think this would happen at the beginning of the year but these kids bonded together and made a pact before the state tournament started. Look where it finished up.”

The end proved a lot prettier for Conard than the beginning.

Dufault didn’t have command of her changeup and walked leadoff batter Cassandra Kish. Brittany Horn laid down a sacrifice bunt. First baseman Sarah Allen couldn’t squeeze the throw. Horn reached and Kish raced to third.

Westhill’s attempt to take control with aggressive base running punctured the rally. Horn stole second and when Kish tried to sneak home, catcher Dani Stevens picked a one-hop throw from second baseman Becky Hoisl and slapped the tag on her.

Horn tried to make third but Stevens fired a strike to Bridget Manning for an improbable double play. Westhill pitcher Allison Macari walked. Eileen Tublin and Elizabeth Joseph followed with base hits but Stevens picked off pinch-runner Jessica Ruffels straying too far off first.

The Westhill batters hadn’t hit into one out but failed to generate a run.

Verrengia couldn’t explain how his veteran club pulled such a dramatic escape.

“I don’t know how it happened but that was a huge inning,” he said. “There could have been four, five or six [runs ahead] very easily and we did what we did all year long. We found ways to get out of innings and stay in games.”

Westhill coach Tom Pia accepted responsibility for his team’s base running mistakes. Signs were missed and plays were not executed.

“They were so juiced up. That’s all my fault,” he said.

Pia felt that Conard, unaccustomed to playing deep in the tournament, might have fizzled if his club had scored.

“There’s a thing about playing in a game like this …,” he said. “If we come out and score three or four runs, they go, ‘Whoa geez, this team from down there must be real,’ but Conard played a great game. They have a great coach and they were disciplined at the plate. They did what they had to do to score runs.”

Dufault, as usual, relied heavily on her teammates. She struck out just three batters.

“My team is incredible,” she said. “I know I can stay on that mound and I know that anything that goes past me, anything that they hit, my team has it. I know that I can trust them. I have all the confidence in the world.”

Conard seized the momentum in the third inning. Jackie Carter lashed a single up the middle, took second on Charlotte Moller’s sacrifice bunt and scored when Hoisl lined a single off the outstretched glove of shortstop Kate Brainard for the game’s first tally.

They added another in the fourth when Mallory Martucci cracked a double to right, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored when catcher Joseph’s pickoff throw went awry.

“We try to create as many opportunities as possible for ourselves and our kids are very knowledgeable of the game so we try to take advantage of that,” Verrengia said.

Westhill finally answered in the fifth. Ninth hitter Allyson Souza launched the first pitch to the fence in right field for a triple and scored on a fielder’s choice grounder by Kish. Stevens limited the damage by throwing out Kish trying to steal for the first out. Horn reached on an error but Dufault retired the next two hitters.

“We’re a mentally strong team,” Verrengia said. “We have eight seniors out of the 11 kids we play and they were just going to fight every inning. We play every inning as a game and we try to win every inning. We were able to win a lot of them today.”

Conard iced it in the sixth.

Manning was hit by a pitch and took second on a bunt single by Caelese Brown. Martucci sacrificed, Stevens was walked intentionally and Allen plated Manning with a sacrifice fly. A balk by Macari allowed Brown to score.

“After we don’t score in the first inning and don’t score again because we had another base running blunder, everybody tightened up,” Pia said. “It was like we were in a vice.”