By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
HI-NELLA — The Gloucester High softball team isn’t used to losing a lot of games, so back-to-back setbacks against Delsea Regional and Egg Harbor Township served as a bit of a late-April wake-up call for the Lions.
Head coach Megan Mason wanted her team to get off to a faster start at Sterling on Tuesday, and her players responded, giving pitcher Emma Dick all the support she would need before the Silver Knights even put on their batting gloves. The Lions jumped out to a 4-0 lead and cruised to a 5-0 Colonial Conference victory over the host Knights, as Dick racked up 10 strikeouts and allowed just two hits in the shutout victory.
Dick, a junior right-hander, needed one strikeout to reach 100 for her career, and after she got that early on she settled in and dominated the Knights. Riley Huber singled in the bottom of the first and Allison Brown singled to lead off the third, and that was it for Sterling. Dick retired the next 15 straight batters to close out the game.
“I just really wanted the win, if I’m being honest. I was very happy,” Dick said. “I came in one (strikeout) away from 100, so I was happy I got that. After that, I was like, ‘whatever happens, happens.’ And I ended up getting 10 Ks. It was good. We’re going to hop right back on the saddle and we’re going to start winning again. I can feel it. Our team is coming together.”
“She got her 100th strikeout. I love her, she’s so good,” said senior infielder Ava Rodgers. “Her change-up is so dirty, it gets me every time in practice. I completely whiff at it.”
Dick bounced back from a tough outing in a 9-7 loss to Egg Harbor Township on Monday, a game in which she allowed seven runs on eight hits in just three innings.
“Sometimes things happen and we have a bad game and lose, but we’re going to bounce back from that like nothing ever happened. You saw that today, we played a great game,” she said. “We were all having fun and talking. Although some people didn’t get the hits they wanted, everybody came together as a team and we won.”
“Mentally, it was a tough one for her yesterday, but she bounced back. I heard her say (in the post-game interview) that all she wants to do is win. That’s all she wants to do. She works for that, and this was a good bounce-back game to get under her belt. We have some really tough teams coming up and we’re going to need her,” Mason said. “We’ve been starting really slowly, waiting until the third time through out lineup to kind of figure it out. So I said today, ‘hey, let’s hop on them quickly.’ If we could get them down quickly we felt like we could get the win.”
Gloucester (7-3, 5-1 Colonial Liberty) certainly did get the jump on Sterling (5-6, 1-5 Colonial Liberty), racking up four runs in the top of the first. Sophomore Bailey Schoenfeldt got things started with a single and scored on an infield overthrow on a grounder off the bat of Haylee Zuccarelli. A walk to Lauren Parry and an infield single by Alexis Ullman loaded the bases and Kaelyn Zearfoss roped an RBI single up the middle, putting the Lions up 2-0. Rodgers padded the lead by following with a two-run single before Sterling’s Mychaela Carr was able to work out of the jam. Carr settled down and limited Gloucester to just four hits and a run the rest of the way, but the way Dick was pitching, the damage had been done.
“That took some pressure off me,” Dick said of the early lead. “I came in here knowing we have a good defense and I have people who can back me up. The defense backs me up 100 percent.”
“We started slowly the last couple of games, but today we came out and showed what we can do. We don’t like to lose, and losing two games back-to-back just fueled us rather than getting us down,” Rodgers said. “We just took it for what it is, it happened but now it’s in the past and we just move on. (Delsea and EHT) were definitely a challenge, but in the end that helps us get better and more focused on the rest of the season.”
Delsea (Group 3) and EHT (Group 4) aren’t the last of the talented bigger schools Gloucester — a Group 1 school — will face this season. Coming up, the Lions, ranked No. 18 in the state, have Hammonton, Cherokee and Kingsway.
“It felt good to get this win after two straight losses. Playing the big teams is tough. We know we’re not going to win every one, but we’re just hoping to get better every day, and I think that’s happening. Playing those big pitchers and big teams that can hit is going to put pressure on us for the end of the year, which is exactly what we need,” Mason said. “We went through it last year. We stacked our schedule the last two years to put us in a good position at the end of the year. A few years ago we were getting to the games that really mean something, and we were in the weaker side of the conference or we just didn’t have a really strong nonconference schedule. So, we’re playing everybody. We’re willing to take on anybody, we don’t care who it is. We know that if we keep progressing and keep getting better against these teams, at the end it will pay off for us.”
Mason said her team can’t get too confident after beating Sterling — there’s still plenty the Lions can improve upon, she said.
“We have a lot to work on. Every part of the game has to improve for us to be where we need to be,” Mason said. “That’s all we’re looking for — every day at practice, working hard, giving your all, every game, every at-bat, every pitch. Just improve and get better.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Gloucester travels to Hammonton on Saturday at 9 a.m. and will take on the Blue Devils at the Hammonton Invitational. Sterling travels to Eastern on Thursday at 3:45 p.m.
