It’s the matchup everyone has been waiting for this season and the only downside is that it comes in the WMass Division III semifinals instead of the title game.
Top-seeded Turners Falls High School (19-2) will face fourth-seeded Greenfield High School (18-2) Thursday evening at 5 at Sortino Field on the campus of the University of Masssachusetts in Amherst for the right to go to the WMass finals. The game pits the three-time defending WMass champions from Turners against an upstart Green Wave team that is looking to bump the perennial powers from the Powertown off the championship mount.
The matchup marks the first time the nearly century-old rivals have met in the postseason since a memorable WMass Division II championship meeting in 2004. Turners Falls High School began what would be a nine-year championship run by beating the Green Wave, 1-0, in a 16-inning affair. That game still holds the record as the longest championship game in western Mass. softball history.
Current Greenfield coach Rian Lovett was a junior third baseman for the Wave in that 16-inning loss.
“I remember the heartbreak of losing that game,” recalled Lovett of the championship defeat. “That was probably the best team I was ever on there.”
It remains to be seen if this meeting — 13 years later — will need that many innings to be decided, but if you ask both coaches involved, the teams are very evenly-matched and the game should certainly be close.
Thursday’s game will be the rubber match between the two Franklin County League teams after the squads split the regular-season series.
Greenfield struck first this season, when it used a two-run home run from Samantha Smith in the bottom of the sixth inning to take a dramatic, 2-1, win at Vets Field in Greenfield. That win marked the first time that Greenfield had beaten Turners Falls since 2009, and also marked Turners’ first league loss since 2013, which is also the one and only year since 2004 that Turners Falls has not won a western Mass. championship.
Since that loss on May 1, Turners Falls has not dropped a game, reeling off 14 consecutive wins, including a number of impressive victories. One of those quality wins came on May 18 when Turners Falls earned the season split with a 3-1 win over Greenfield at the Bourdeau Fields Complex in Turners Falls.
In that game, Greenfield struck first with a run in the top of the fourth inning, but Turners Falls came back with two runs in the bottom of the frame and added another run in the fifth. The Powertown got to Greenfield pitcher Olivia Joy for eight hits in the win, while the potent Green Wave offense had just five hits and was held to its lowest run total of the season.
The season series proved a couple of things. The team that scored first in both games did not win, and with two of the best pitchers in western Mass. squaring off, the first team to two runs may wind up as the winner.
The Green Wave is looking to crash the perennial postseason party thrown by Turners Falls, which has won 12 WMass titles in the past 13 years. The only year Turners did not win the WMass crown was in 2013, when it fell in the Division III title game to Mt. Everett Regional High School.
Turners Falls coach Gary Mullins said the Green Wave has as solid a team as his squad has faced this season, complete with everything a team needs to win a WMass title.
“They have quality pitching, a terrific catcher and a stellar shortstop,” Mullins said, referring to Wave pitcher Olivia Joy, catcher Lizzy Howland and shortstop Samantha Smith. “You add some solid athletes around them, and you have a very good team.”
While the Green Wave will try to crash the party, Greenfield knows it has its hands full with the perennial powers.
“Honestly, the fact that their whole lineup is a weapon makes them so difficult,” offered Lovett of Turners. “We talk about strategy and it’s hard because up and down the lineup, it doesn’t matter who is up. They can come up clutch. They’re all really good.”
Thursday’s game features two of the top arms in western Mass. this season as Greenfield sophomore Joy squares off against Turners Falls junior Peyton Emery. Joy throws harder than Emery, routinely clocking in at over 60 miles per hour, but Emery has been equally effective this season. Mullins said that Joy presents a difficult challenge for his lineup.
“She throws it hard, and speed kills. Hard throwers do very well,” Mullins said. “We are going to have to hit the ball… it’s pretty simple, and she doesn’t make it easy.”
Joy’s dominance has been on full display in the tournament. The right-hander has thrown back-to-back perfect games to open the tournament, kicking off the postseason with a 15-0, five-inning win over Franklin County Technical School. She followed that up with seven perfect frames against Athol High School in a 6-0 quarterfinal win. Joy has struck out 23 hitters in the two games.
“She is throwing very, very well right now, it’s been very impressive,” Mullins offered. “She is very confident and she has every right to be. She deserves all the accolades.”
Emery’s first season as Turners’ starting pitcher has been downright impressive. Despite the huge shoes left by the graduation of Mackenzie Phillips, the junior has kept the Powertown train right on rolling this spring.
“She has so much poise out there,” lauded Lovett of Emery. “It doesn’t seem like she gets rattled and she doesn’t get nervous out there. She’s so even-keeled that she has the ability to just bear down and get the job done.”
Emery’s precision is a weapon that Lovett said her team needs to prepare for.
“She hits her spots. She’s just a really disciplined pitcher,” the Greenfield coach said. “If we’re not (disciplined), we’re not going to win the game. It’s as simple as that.”
While Turners Falls came into the season as the three-time defending WMass Division III champions, this year’s team does not enter with a lot of experience. Turners Falls lost five key starters from a year ago, including Phillips, and comes into today with several underclassmen in the starting lineup. The last time the two teams met, Turners had just two seniors and two juniors in the starting lineup to go with one sophomore, three freshmen and an eighth-grader.
Even with the youth movement, expectations around the program remain high, something Mullins said can be difficult on the team.
“There is no question that we have expectations, there is no way to get rid of it,” he explained. “I don’t care what I tell the kids, these kids now have to do things because of our history. That’s not always easy to deal with. Our kids have done great this season. They’ve won 19 games and we gave them a heck of a schedule.”
In order to prepare the team for this season, Mullins scheduled a number of difficult independents, including a pair of games against the top-seeded team in the Division II field in Hampshire Regional High School, single games against Wachusett High School and Newton North High School, as well as playing in a FCL that has been as solid as it has been in years.
“Hopefully that experience will work for us as we continue to play,” Mullins said. “But I’ve watched seniors drop routine fly balls in big games. I’ve been at Szot Park in the top of the 12th inning of a WMass championship game when we scored four runs and they score five in the bottom of the inning to beat us. There isn’t anything that will surprise me.”
Lovett said that the Turners name carries so much weight that her program, along with just about every other one in the area, has tried to emulate the Powertown for the past two decades.
“That caliber of play… Turners is just good,” Lovett began. “They have this dynasty of being such a good team. As a coach, I want to strive for that. I want my girls to be like them and win like them. Just personally, I remember the heartbreaking losses when I played (against Turners). We were never able to win that big game against them. So for me, I want the girls to experience the big win and the glory. It’s been a long time coming.”
Mullins also said that while Greenfield does not have the experience of playing in the WMass softball semifinals since 2009, the players on the team have experienced successes in other sports. Many of the players were a part of the WMass Division II champion field hockey team this past fall, and a number were members of a Green Wave basketball team that won 19 games this past season.
The result may very well come down to who doesn’t make that one mistake that proves fatal.
“Experience can be overrated,” Mullins concluded. “Softball is a very fragile game. One mistake, whether mental or physical, and you are on the bus and your season is over.”
Limiting mistakes is something few teams are able to accomplish historically against Turners. Lovett said it’s as important, if not more important, than anything the Wave will need to do in order to be successful on Thursday.
“We’ve talked about that all season, every time we’ve played them,” began Lovett. “We keep saying, you can’t make mistakes because (Turners will) capitalize on all the little things. You can’t give them an extra base on a hit, give them an extra out. Those are the type of things they’re able to take advantage of. Be disciplined, that’s been our word of the year. Disciplined at the plate, in the field, wherever.”
Expect a large and enthusiastic crowd of local fans to make the trek to UMass on Thursday. The local interest has been building toward this game since the two regular season meetings, and with a spot in the finals on the line, Sortino Field will be quite the sight for the semifinal contest. Bear Country (95.3-FM) will air the game live in its entirety to the fans unable to make the trip to Amherst.
“I think it’s going to be very exciting,” Lovett said. “I think you’re going to see some nerves because a lot of these girls haven’t been in this spot before. But I think that the girls can rise to the occasion because they’ve done it in the past this season. When you play at Turners, it’s almost like a playoff atmosphere. This is one step up, but I think they’ll be able to overcome the awe of being there.”
Entering as the underdog against decades of excellence is exactly the position Lovett and the Wave want to be in.
“I haven’t really expressed that, but that’s kind of how I feel,” said Lovett of Greenfield’s underdog status. “(Turners is) expected to win this game. Even though we had a really good season and we are 18-2, I still feel like some people haven’t given us the credit, which is okay. We’d rather prove people wrong than be expected to win.”
All that’s left now is to play the game. See you there.