Baldwin gets the bats going

Baldwin entered perhaps its biggest week of the season riding a little wave of momentum, even after a 9-4 non-conference defeat to Oceanside last Friday night. The Lady Bruins (6-5 overall, 2-4 in Conference AA-II), doomed by one bad inning — the Lady Sailors scored seven runs in the third — continue to be driven by a core of returning veterans that has recently begun getting support from several newcomers to the varsity team.

“We played Oceanside [well],” Baldwin coach Tom Llewellyn said. “It was a good game, and we out hit them. The momentum we have going is nice, because we’re all
starting to hit.”

The day before the loss to Oceanside, Baldwin pounded out a 14-1 victory at Plainview-JFK, scoring six runs in the second and fourth innings. Junior Jessica Pulis allowed just one run and five hits in the circle. In blowing the game open in the second, the Lady Bruins batted around with seven players getting hits in the frame, and the damage could have been worse if sophomore Sara Hueser hadn’t been robbed of a home run. “In the second inning all the big [bats] came through,” Llewellyn said, noting his No. 3 hitter, senior Carly Mertens, and No. 5 hitter, senior Liza Ueno, had extra-base hits in the inning.

Leadoff hitter Jade Aponte is hitting well over .400 and has also slugged a pair of homers, and the recent play of sophomore third baseman Sophia Nicolas, the team’s leading hitter with a batting average over .500, has been a big boost to the lineup’s overall production. Entering her first varsity season, Nicolas was the No. 9 hitter before recently moving up. Her spot was taken by junior catcher Michelle Messina, who like Nicolas learned how to hit lefty during the offseason. The effort has paid off for both slap hitters, as Messina is hitting at a .390 clip. Senior Jill Bellovin leads the team with three home runs.

As strong as Messina has been with the bat, her work behind the plate also helped her jump into the starting lineup and allowed Ueno to move out to second base, where she’s been a dynamo with the glove and teamed with Aponte to turn a sparkling double play against Plainview JFK. “She’s a hard worker,” Llewellyn said of Messina. “She worked all offseason with the pitchers and worked her way into the starting lineup.”

Messina was behind the plate in a tough 3-2 loss to Calhoun on April 10, in which Pulis limited the high-powered Lady Colts to just one earned run and five hits over eight innings. “Jessica’s been doing well hitting her spots and limiting walks,” Llewellyn said. “She works quick and throws a lot of strikes. When she’s on, she can beat anybody.”

Following a battle with first place Syosset after presstime, Baldwin was also set to battle second place Bellmore JFK (last Monday after presstime) and Herricks (April 25) with the possibility of a makeup game with Hicksville — the game, originally scheduled for last Saturday was postponed--squeezed in for good measure.

“We started off well and caught a couple of losses in the middle but the girls didn’t get down,” Llewellyn said.