Saturday softball: Mingin surpasses 100 career hits in Woodstown victory; Pennsville splits in Vinick Tournament
SATURDAY SALEM COUNTY SOFTBALL
Woodstown 7, Camden Catholic 1
Millville 6, Pennsville 2
Pennsville 9, Ocean City 7
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
WOODSTOWN – One of the first goals Tulana Mingin set for herself when she started playing varsity softball was to collect 100 hits before she graduated.
Saturday morning, the dream that seemed so long ago became a reality.
The Woodstown senior shortstop became the 11th player in the program’s history – and first since 2018 – to reach 100 career hits while she collected four of them in the Wolverines’ 7-1 victory over Camden Catholic.
It took her 199 at bats and 60 games to reach the milestone.
“It means a lot; I’m really excited about it, because I work really hard on my hitting and it’s nice to see it pay off,” Mingin said. “Going into my freshman year I would think about it because it’s something really cool to do and not a lot of people do it in this program, so it’s a big deal.
“I wasn’t really thinking about it when I was younger, but as it got closer I started to think I’m getting pretty close to it, it would be really cool.”
The East Stroudsburg signee needed only one hit for the milestone entering the game and wasted little time getting it.
Leading off the bottom of the first, she belted the second pitch she saw into left centerfield for a triple. Unfortunately, she was stranded there as the Wolverines loaded the bases but failed to score.
Hit No. 101 was more productive. It was a two-out RBI single to left that put the Wolverines up 1-0. She ended up all the way at third as she circled the infield as the Irish tried to get the lead runner at the plate.
“I was a little bit anxious, but I was pretty relaxed because I know I can’t worry about that stuff,” she said. “I was just going to try to do my best in every at bat, and it worked out.”
Indeed. Teams are still trying to figure a way to get her out. She went 4-for-4 against the Irish and has yet to make an out in eight plate appearances this season (6-for-6 and two walks). In fact, she has reached base in each of her last 10 plate appearances going back to the final game last season. She has been hitless in only nine games in her game, just four over the last three seasons.
“There’s no words to describe how great of a player she is and what she means to our program, what she means to me as a coach,” Woodstown coach Dave Wildermuth said. “She’s just a great all-around player. She works really hard at softball. She deserves every milestone that she reaches and every honor that she receives.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed like yesterday and today the way teams are shifting on her, they end up pulling the infield in and the outfield up because they think she’s just a slap hitter, but you can see she can drive the softball. If you want to cheat your outfield up on her, she’s going to put the ball over your head or in the gap.”
And that’s what produced the milestone triple. The Irish pulled the fielders in and she got a pitch that looked up in a zone and power slapped it into the left centerfield gap. With her speed that typically turns walks into doubles within a couple pitches, she went into third standing up.
Her 103 total hits (in 202 career at-bats) are now 10th on the Wolverines’ all-time list. The next milestone is the all-time mark – 131, set by Gracee Roberts in 2018 – but that’s not on her mind right now.
“I try not to think about stats like that because then it’s just going to make me play for myself instead of the team and I just need to do my best and not worry about that,” she said.
Grace White, the 1A in the Wolverines’ tandem of aces, gave up four hits and struck out 11 from the circle. The run the Irish (0-1) scored was unearned, coming around on an two-out infield throwing error.
Freshman catcher Lila Bowling, who won the position after an early call-up from the JV camp and according to Wildermuth “has earned the respect of all the upperclassmen,” made three veteran plays behind the plate to keep the Irish off the board.
In each of the first two innings she retrieved balls that went to the backstop and flipped it back to White in time to cut down runners trying to score from third. And then in the fourth she started an inning-ending catcher-to-first-to-home double play with runners at second and third to kill that threat.
“I’ve played with older girls my whole life so I’m kind of used playing with older girls,” Bowling said. “I’m not really worried about anything, I go out there and do whatever.”
The Wolverines (2-0) return to action Monday at home against Pennsville. The game will have a 4:30 p.m. start to give the solar eclipse time to safely clear the area.
WOODSTOWN 7, CAMDEN CATHOLIC 1
| Camden Catholic (0-1) | 000 001 0- | 1 4 0 |
| Woodstown (2-0) | 012 202 x- | 7 8 3 |
Ron Vinick Tournament
PENNSVILLE 9, OCEAN CITY 7: Kylie Harris and Bella Farina, two of the mainstays on the Pennsville LL Senior World Series team last summer, both had three hits with Farina hitting two homers as the Eagles won the consolation game of the tournament.
They lost their tournament opener to host Millville 6-2.
Harris went 3-for-4 with a double, triple and two RBIs. Farina went 3-for-3 with solo homers in the third and sixth innings and four RBIs. Lilly Birney hit an inside-the-park homer in the fifth. Brooke Douglas went 4-for-4 with two homers and six RBIs for Ocean City.
CONSOLATION GAME
PENNSVILLE 9, OCEAN CITY 7
| Ocean City (1-2) | 001 303 0- | 7 10 2 |
| Pennsville (2-1) | 102 411 x- | 9 10 2 |
Woodstown’s All-Time Hits List
| PLAYER | HITS | YEAR |
| Gracee Roberts | 131 | 2018 |
| Megan McCurdy | 128 | 2014 |
| Amy Gray | 126 | 1994 |
| Sarah Morgan | 122 | 2018 |
| Raechelle Hatchell | 117 | 1993 |
| Kim Duus | 115 | 1994 |
| Bethany Mills | 108 | 2001 |
| Amanda Clark | 107 | 2000 |
| Kristen Merkle | 105 | 2000 |
| x-Tulana Mingin | 103 | 2024 |
| Kim Merkle | 102 | 1997 |
Riverview Sports News 