SALEM, N.H. – Heading into Tuesday’s game, the Salem High softball team had five losses.
There was no way, said junior catcher Mikayla Morales, that the Blue Devils were going to lose their sixth game of the season – especially to their biggest rivals of Windham, which entered the game with a 12-1 record.
“A bunch of us know each other from both towns. We play together with different travel teams. Not just me, but all of us just want to beat each other,” said Morales, who was sporting a big smile after the team’s 8-2 victory.
“It gets to the point where it’s like ‘we’re going to beat you’, but it’s really, ‘I’m going to beat you’. It gets back to that rivalry of who is just going to be better.”
That exchange has taken place with her friend Ava Runde since last year’s meeting.
“We go to hitting lessons and stuff together and we just kept saying to each other ‘I’m going to beat you, I’m going to beat you’. I’m just glad that we beat (Windham) today,” said Morales.
Runde did get a late jab in when she belted a solo home run over the center field fence in the top of the sixth inning.
“We didn’t say anything to each other (after the home run). We just patted each other’s backs and kept walking,” said Morales with a laugh.
Before that home run, Salem (8-5) already delivered the knockout punch. The Blue Devils scored five runs in the bottom of the first thanks to two-run singles by Morales and Emma Howes. That was more than enough to go on cruise control the rest of the way.
“We knew that we were the underdogs going in and we knew this would be a shot for us to put it all together,” said Salem first-year head coach Mariah Tebo. “This is a young team and we’re really trying to put it all together. Every game we continue to build and today felt like it all came together. We had a big first inning and then it carried through to everyone between the hitting and the pitching.”
Abbie Beeley finished 3 for 4 with an RBI and Lily Gross had two hits with an RBI and scored twice.
Defensively, senior right fielder Kyleigh Oliveri made a sensational diving catch to take possible extra bases away from Lily Carballeira for the first out of the top of the seventh.
“Kyleigh is quick, and she gets after it. She’ll lay out for anything hit near her,” said Tebo.