Salem CC softball guaranteed a spot in Region 19 playoffs field, ends scoring drought despite being swept but needs more consistency going forward
MONDAY REGION 19 SOFTBALL
Delaware Tech 10-13, Salem CC 0-9
TUESDAY’S GAMES
Morris at Salem CC
Mercer at Delaware Tech
Lackawanna at Sussex
Middlesex at Camden
Bergen at Brookdale
Northampton at Ocean
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNSVILLE – After struggling to score runs in its previous three games, the Salem CC softball team’s bats started coming back around in the late innings of Monday’s nightcap with Delaware Tech.
The Mighty Oaks were swept for the third straight doubleheader 10-0 and 13-9. They haven’t won since smashing Sussex on April 17 finally saw some success The Salem CC softball team has already been told it has a spot in the Region 19 Division II playoffs,
Its their longest slide since the end of the 2023 season when they lost their last seven. But at least they scored with some regularly in that slide.
The Mighty Oaks had been held scoreless for 21 consecutive innings before putting up a run in second inning of Game 2, then scored eight runs in the final three innings to make things interesting.
While that has brightened the Salem players’ spirits, head coach Angel Rodriguez is looking for more as the Mighty Oaks turn toward the playoffs.
“Consistent hitting, that’s what I would like,” he said. “We just took too long to make an adjustment (Monday). We finally caught up to it and hopefully they understand when we kind of do that earlier good things will happen but we just have to be able to it do more consistently
“We’ll see if it carries in, but we’ve been very inconsistent, so we’ll see what tomorrow looks like.”
Normally, to make the Region 19 playoffs a team must have a .500 or better record either overall or within the region. After Monday, the Mighty Oaks must go 4-2 in their final six games this week to meet that criteria and have two sweepable twinbills among them, starting with Tuesday’s final home date with Morris.
Failing that, however, the Mighty Oaks are still in because it takes a minimum of four teams to make a playoff field and Salem is solidly the fourth best team evened if they struggled of late.
Playing their fourth doubleheader in five days, the Mighty Oaks were shutout in both games at Mercer over the weekend, limited to two hits in each game. They were held to one hit by Del Tech in Monday’s opener – Bella Rappa’s first-inning single – and struck out 11 times against hard-throwing Kylee Hill.
They were on track to being run-ruled in Game 2, too. They did have five hits over the first four innings, but fell behind 10-1.
Center fielder Val Hatterer gave the Mighty Oaks a chance to keep playing when she took away a potential three-run homer with her fourth homer-robbing catch at the fence.
The Mighty Oaks needed at least two runs in the home fifth to stay alive and that’s what they got. Ella Hayes got it started with a leadoff homer and when they were down to their last out consecutive singles by Tiana Wilson, Hatterer and Tessa Wise extended the game.
“Just seeing a number on the board definitely gave us confidence,” Hayes said. “Just like in basketball, once you see it in, you just get confidence and see your own bucket go in. I think that’s kind of what happened for us. Once we saw it on the board it’s almost like we can do this. Just seeing a crooked number up there was good.”
It ignited what Callie Rozak called “the drive to want to do better.” They rallied for four in the sixth on two-run singles by Bella Rappa and Wise to make it 10-7. They proceeded to get the go-ahead run to the plate with two outs, but Rozak flew out to right field ending the inning.
Del Tech’s Cecelia Johnston hit a three-run homer in the seventh to make it 13-7. The Mighty Oaks scored twice in their half of the inning when Hayes and Rappa both raced home on wild pitches, but they couldn’t get anything else going.
Still, they seemed to shake whatever was holding them back and the drought was over.
“Coming in we knew Del Tech was going to be a hard team, we knew that pitcher threw very fast and we had to adjust to it and we didn’t do very well adjusting to that fast pitching,” Rappa said. “Those last couple innings was us working together as a team for once, hitting our pitches not their pitches, so it was nice to come back and fight and not go 0-0 on the scoreboard.
“We do have to get more consistent but I feel like this was probably the first game we all actually at the end wanted to fight it out.”
Now they’ll see what Tuesday brings.
Baseball
On the eve of Tuesday’s Carney Point opener of its home-and-home series with No. 1 RCSJ-Gloucester, Salem CC received votes in the JUCO Division III baseball poll for the first time since the revival of the program.
The Mighty Oaks (21-17) were one of four Region 19 teams receiving votes in the poll, but didn’t crack the Top 15. RCSJ-Gloucester (No. 1) and Brookdale (No. 4) made the top 15.
“Happy to get votes, happy to get recognized; one step at a time,” Salem coach John Holt said. “We’ve just gotta control what we can control.”
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