Wahconah Tops Drury for Fifth Straight Win

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- Wahconah’s softball coach likes what he gets from pitcher Allie Borowsky and likes what the rest of his players get from her as well.

“She’s been doing a good job all year of hitting her spots, but I thought today she did a terrific job,” Dustin Belcher said Monday after a 5-0 win over Drury. “She made the pitches she had to make. It was 3-0, and they had two on, the tying run at the plate. She really showed some guts there. She bore down and got the job done.

“I can’t say enough about the way she competes in that circle, and it just becomes contagious for her teammates.”

Borowsky struck out eight and scattered five hits in the shutout win.

After going down 3-0 in the top of the second, Drury’s best chance to get back in the game came in the fourth when Alli Brassard led off with a single to right, and Maya Howland hit a two-out single to right to put runners at the corners.

But Borowsky got the next batter to swing at a 2-2 pitch, and she allowed just one more base runner the rest of the way as Wahconah improved to 5-1 this spring.

Wahconah jumped out early when Ashley Zink led off the game by dropping a single into left field. She stole second and came home on Chloe Warren’s one-out double to left-center.

She went to third on Jess Warren’s infield single, and Borowsky helped her cause with a sacrifice bunt to score Chloe Warren and make it 2-0.

In the second, Marki LaRochelle doubled with one out and came home on Zink’s single to left.

But Drury pitcher Howland got the next batter to look at a called third strike and silenced Wahconah’s bats through the middle inning to keep the Blue Devils (3-3) in the game.

“She settled down, and she pitched well,” Drury coach Chad DeGrenier said. “She had some big strikeouts in big moments. She only walked one batter the whole game. She pitched well.

“She got Chloe Warren at least twice. Any time you get that girl out, you’re pitching well.”

Howland stranded two runners in the third and kept Wahconah off the basepaths in the fourth and fifth. She finished with nine strikeouts while allowing seven hits.

Two of those hits came in the sixth, when Wahconah was able to get Borowsky sparked a two-run rally with a leadoff triple down the right field line.

After Howland retired two, LaRochelle worked a walk and moved up on defensive indifference to put two in scoring position for Kelly McMahon.

McMahon hit a seeing eye single to the left side to bring home both runners and give Borowsky the five-run cushion going to the bottom of the sixth.

Belcher was excited about the way his team performed in its fifth straight win -- a streak that has seen Wahconah shut out three opponents.

“Defensively, we played well,” he said. “Allie did a great job today in terms of being efficient. And offensively, we got some timely hits. We went through a little bit of a drought there at one point in the game at the plate, but we bounced back and got those insurance runs in the end, which was huge.

“There’s always things to improve on, and we continue to get better every day. We play a tough schedule. It’s good for us. We have another big one on Wednesday against Mount Anthony. But to come here - it’s a tough place to play, Drury is a much improved team. So for us to come in and get a win here, I’m very happy with where we’re at.”

Drury faces another tough test on Tuesday when it travels to meet Taconic.

More photos of this game here.