Lady Rams softball team loses three straight games
May 8, 2024 at 10:21 p.m.
These are the times that try men's souls. And women's, too. Especially the young teen-aged women playing softball for the Port Chester Lady Rams.
They have lost three straight games to top notch teams in Fox Lane, Ossining and White Plains in the past week or so by a combined score of 44-3.
And yet they have a lot of talent and try very hard. As evidenced by the way they recently beat lesser teams like Lincoln.
But if truth be told, they just don't have the kind of windmill pitching necessary to compete in a fast pitch league that includes the area's best.
Especially when they go up against very good teams like the trio that just beat them.
Optimist and pessimist
In fact, what has been happening to the Lady Rams lately reminds at least this observer of the old story about the conversation between a pessimist and an optimist.
"Don't worry, at least things can't get any worse," says the pessimist.
"Oh, yeah, just wait and see what happens next," comes the response from the optimist.
So, you get the idea that all is not going well for the Lady Rams.
Against the Foxes, for example, the Port Chester offense consisted of a single base hit by Karah Provenzano that was good for a run batted in, and that RBI accounted for the Lady Rams’ only run in a 14-1 loss. The team had only three other base runners, all on walks to Sofia Greco, Melina Morban and Fatima Coyt who scored Port Chester's solitary run.
Wheeling and dealing
So the Foxes’ windmilling pitcher was really wheeling and dealing and the locals never got in the swing of things.
It was a little better against Ossining because the Lady Rams scored a deuce.
The trouble was that the Pride scored 18.
But at least the Lady Rams had eight hits including Taby Sanchez and Provenzano both coming up with two hits apiece including an extra base hit by Sanchez. Tamara Correia also had a double and an RBI as did Yvonne Santiago. Heidi Gonzalez singled and scored a run. Provenzano scored the other run. And six Lady Rams struck out.
The silver lining
But Port Chester's veteran head coach Jeanine Maiolini still saw the silver lining in all those clouds.
"We were seeing the ball well and had some nice hits against a strong Ossining pitcher," she said, singling out the Sanchez and Provenzano dual hit performance and the Correia and Santiago hit doubles into the gap with both getting RBIs. She also noted that Gonzalez smoked a single to right field and scored a run as did Provenzano. And said that Coyt was pitching a great game until errors let her down and the Pride started hitting the ball well and finding the gaps.
But then Port Chester went from scoring one and two runs to getting shut out by the White Plains fast baller, allowing just one hit by Correia while striking out four batters and allowing just one other base runner (Greco, who was hit by a pitch).
Maiolini, a realist as well as a former high school All-Star who played college ball for nationally-ranked Hofstra, doesn't sugarcoat what has been happening. Her team has the talent to win against lesser teams like Lincoln but, as things stand now, can't compete against the better teams like the Foxes, Pride and White Plains that have year-round programs, travel teams and windmill pitching instruction. And until that happens in Port Chester, all she can do is teach her Lady Rams the fundamentals of the game while stressing the fun in fundamentals in a family atmosphere designed to create teamwork and friendships and memories that will last a lifetime.
Work in progress
If she does that, and she does, Maiolini, a former All-League coach and current physical education instructor in the Port Chester School District, feels she is doing her job, a job she has been doing very well in turning around a losing culture in the past decade whether it shows or not in the W-L record. She knows she can only take things so far without more support. And she thinks her Lady Rams have a shot at winning in their next away game Friday (5/10) against East Ramapo at 4:30 p.m. at Spring Valley High School in Rockland County. Because hope springs eternal and she believes that if her Lady Rams ever get the help they deserve from Port Chester in the form of a year-round program, the girls have the talent to become very good indeed.
But until that happens, it is going to be a work in progress. And the Lady Rams are trying hard and doing the best they can whether the record shows it or not.
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