14U Title and Sportsmanship Cap a Great Abington Tourney for DGS!

14U Title and Sportsmanship Cap A Great Weekend in Abington Tourney for DGS!

While everyone was enjoying the weather and honoring their Dads this weekend, DGS was also competing at the fantastic 24th Annual Father’s Day Tournament in Abington. For the first time in memory Dedham was able to send 3 teams down as all age brackets were represented. 10U, 12U, and 14U teams played games that started Friday and went through late Sunday afternoon. Despite being tired and sun burnt come Sunday night the teams had much to be proud of as they represented DGS well and, topping it all, was coming home with the 14U Title and Great “Props” from an opposing coach!

First off was the 10Us who would have their first taste of high level tourney ball in this tourney and while they mave been “newbies” at first pitch they were seasoned veterans by the end of the tourney and showed everyone that they will be a force to be reckoned with as the summer progresses. The Dads who celebrated with their girls as both Dads and coaches were led by Field General Frank”ona” Bolotte, His crack staff was First Base “The Professor” John Coyle, Third Base Coach Tom’ “Send em in” Salemy, Donnie “Stats” Sciarappa, and Bench Coach/Bolotte “restrainer” Joe Florio. The players on the field were Caroline Coyle, Ciara Bolotte, Julia and Sydney Salemy, Lucia Florio, Giana Sciarappa, Jess Andrews, Ally Flagg, Kassidy Hickey, Kayla Romig, Ava Bevilacqua, and Brooke McMurtry. All of the girls had 3 great games but in particular there were 3 special performances that were “MVP worthy as Jess Andrews, Ciara Bolotte, and Sydney Salemy were recognized during the tourney for their play. Despite not doing as well as they hoped, the team knows their games against Walpole, Nipmuc, and Abington were well played and has them ready to begin their Summer Season in the Hock League that started this week down at Sugrue.

Steve “Psycho” Boudette led his 12Us into their bracket with the help of Jon “The Gambler” Pioccone, Bob “The Voice” Peckham, and Charlie “Chuckles” Kelly. Their squad fought tooth and nail all weekend and had many stars step up and players with memorable moments. Megan Peckham earned an MVP award leading the girls to their opening win vs. Abington that was followed up by a great late inning comeback from 9-2 against Braintree that was capped off by Hanna “MVPioccone” game winning bottom of the last inning base hit. A tough loss to Marshfield didn’t take the shine off Julia Holton’s mound performance as Saturday ended and had the girls looking to Sunday and the playoffs. “MaeveVP” Bolotte wowed the crowd with a handful of game saving catches against Abington that sent the squad to the semifinals against undefeated Marshfield. This time the girls fought tooth and nail and pushed the eventual finalists to their last at bat. Despite having the tying runs on base and an MVP performance from Corinne Downey before a heartbreaking knee injury in the penultimate inning, the girls valiantly fell 9-. Charlene Kelly, Molly Egan, Sophie Boudette, Alyssa Wisniewski, Emma Francis, Danielle McMurtry, and Ashley Gilarde rounded out the great group that now headed home to recover and get ready for their summer journey knowing they stood tall with the best the South Shore has to offer and could do the same in Hock with great results!

Climbing in the ladder in age also had the DGS teams climbing in success as the 14U topped off their tourney with a pulsating 4-2 win over Abington to finish a 5 game undefeated run through the tourney and take home the Championship!  Manager Brian Mitchell and his staff of Dennis Kirshy and Arielle Sutton pushed all the right buttons and had the girls in all the right spots all weekend as they swept through the toughest bracket there was and then toppled Braintree before facing off with South Shore Dynasty Abington. The final game was a hard fought battle against the host town Abington; .Dedham won the exchange 4-2. Leading the charge for Dedham was the pitching duo of Wiley Holton and Elizabeth Wade. Key contributors to the successful weekend were their great defense started by Camille Walter at shortstop Kristina Mitchell first base and Caroline Mitchell guarding at third base. Brittany Greenwood, Emma Lane, Allison Sullivan and Julia Ritcey provided the spark from the bats that Dedham needed to sweep the weekend Tournament. Shannon Kirshy, Christina Maloof, Elizabeth Balzarini, Lauren Walter, were other key contributors to the winning results for Dedham girls Softball.  From Manager Brian Mitchell: “We especially want to commend Ally Duggan for her show of sportsmanship during a game with Quincy, We can not say it any better than the  Quincy Coach Jay Davis who sent the following message to coaches at the Tournament : Its times like this that make being a coach worth it!”  On behalf of the Quincy Contingent, I want to thank you and all of your volunteers for a wonderful tournament. I wanted to share with everyone a great story from the weekend. On Saturday the Quincy U14 team was playing Dedham. One of our pitchers was had control problems and hit two Dedham players. She became extremely upset and I pulled her in the middle of an at bat. The pitcher left the game and was still upset while sitting in the dugout. While the new pitcher was warning up, the Dedham batter came over to the dugout to console our pitcher. The batter told the pitcher that she was a very good pitcher and it was ok to be upset but she wanted the pitcher to know that the two hitters were ok. She went on to tell the pitcher she was very good and must have had a bad day. All too often we share stories of the negative in sports. However during the weekend the teams were very well coached, played hard and demonstrated great character