East Windsor Softball Suffers Tough Loss to Granby Memorial

The Granby Memorial High softball team continued its impressive season with a 20-0 victory over East Windsor High on Monday afternoon.

The Bears (17-1) were churning on all cylinders, pounding out 21 hits en route to their 11th consecutive victory.

Amy Bilodeau had three hits, scored two runs and  had five RBIs on the day, while Sam Graskritz had a single and two doubles and scored three runs.

On defense, pitcher Erin Walsh flirted with a perfect game through 5 ⅔ innings. The bid for perfection ended when East Windsor’s Elizabeth Arcari reached on an error with two outs in the sixth. The next batter, Melissa Wabble, broke up the no-hitter with a clean single to center field.

But that was all the offense the Panthers could muster, as Walsh struck out 11 to earn the Bears’ fifth shutout of the season.

It’s a team that has the talent to repeat as North Central Connecticut Conference champions and make another deep run in the state Class M tournament.

The Bears are tied with NCCC rival Suffield, which was 16-1 entering Monday's game, with the two teams splitting their regular-season meetings this year. The Bears currently have the No. 1 seeding in Class M over Suffield.

“It’s a little different team than it was last year,” Granby Memorial head coach Brian McDermott said.” “We have three versatile pitchers [Walsh, Courtney Ahrens and Jen Szilagyi], but our bats are going to carry us. We don’t have a No.1 [pitcher] like we did in the past. We’ve got it spread out - a senior, a sophomore and a junior. And all of them can step up for each other.”
East Windsor, for its part, fell to 9-10 on the year.

Panthers head coach Karen Drake said that, even though her team could have made fewer mistakes, Granby Memorial was just the better team physically.

“We gave up a little bit mentally,” Drake said. “And we don’t need to give up mentally. We need to fight hard. … But [Granby Memorial] was just better than us. And there is no shame in playing them.”

And there were still signs of fight, even with the Panthers trailing by a significant number of runs. That’s not just a sportswriter looking for a silver lining in a blowout.

Trailing by 18 runs in the top of the 7th inning, Wabble, the Panthers’ shortstop, was still seen diving in the hole to prevent a ball from squirting into the outfield.

“That’s what we need to carry over into [the final two games],” Drake said. “That’s why [Wabble] is all-conference.”