It was right there. The Mascenic softball team was up five runs on undefeated White Mountains, just a few short innings away from heading to the Vikings’ first state finals appearance since 2004. But slowly, agonizingly, the Mascenic lead slipped away, and though they grasped it once more — briefly — it was all over in a heartbeat.
“We expected to be here,” said first-year coach Dutch Stauffeneker after last Wednesday’s semifinal game at Plymouth State. “At the very beginning of the season, we expected to be here.”
The Vikings lived up to those expectations as they reeled off 14 wins en route to the No. 4 seed in Division III. Once they got up to Plymouth, all that stood between them and a state finals appearance was undefeated No. 1 White Mountains.
Stauffeneker had primed his girls on how to approach the Spartans’ starting pitcher, Katlyn Coulter, an imposing fireballer.
“I thought we were a good enough fastball-hitting team to be able to score runs off this pitcher,” Stauffeneker said. Mascenic jumped all over Coulter, feasting on her heat.
The Vikings got hits in the first and second but couldn’t score. In the third, they broke through. Centerfielder Sam Bilodeau snuck a liner through the middle and pitcher Maddie Labrie followed her with another single. Both advanced on a passed ball during senior catcher Casey Wayrynen’s at-bat; the captain walked to load the bases. First baseman Raven Comtois singled to left to break the ice and plate Bilodeau..
Shortstop Jordyn Babin would send Labrie in with a fielders’ choice, and once second baseman Sydney Letters singled, the bases were loaded again with one out. Everything was going Mascenic’s way.
Then, the Vikings caught their first bad break of the game. Right fielder Tori Keating came up and hit a deep fly to left, catchable, but plenty far enough to allow Comtois to tag and score. Comtois stood on third, waiting for the ball to hit the glove, and took off; another Mascenic cleat on the plate and maybe more to come. But as the Vikings welcomed Comtois to the dugout with high fives and helmet slaps, the plate umpire waved his arms — Comtois, he decided, had left early. The Vikings rally was quashed.
As the game progressed, that controversy took a back seat as it appeared Mascenic would have all the runs they’d need to win the game.
White Mountains would tie the game in the third, with Macey Millett walking and scoring on a error and Katelyn Nelson bunting on and crossing on a groundout.
But in the fifth, the Vikings blew it open, scoring five runs. Mascenic opened the inning with four straight singles off Coulter, timing the fastball perfectly on their third time through the order. Bilodeau would cap off the inning with a two-run double and with a 7-2 lead, a win seemed all but inevitable.
“We got up 7-2 and they thought it was over,” Stauffeneker said. “I told them: ‘This team is here for a reason. They’re not a bad team. They’ve got a lot of bats.”
The White Mountains offense struck immediately, and as their bats heated up, the Vikings’ gloves cooled down.
Mascenic made two errors in the bottom of the fifth, allowing two runs to score.
“We talked all year about this,” Stauffeneker said. “We’re not good enough to give teams five or six outs.”
Her fastball not fooling anybody, Coulter wised up and started throwing some off-speed stuff, and it worked; she’d retire the heart of the Mascenic lineup in order in the top of the sixth.
Then, the wheels really came off. White Mountains loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth on a pair of errors and a bunt. Amaya Dodier came to the plate and roped a double that scored two, bringing the Spartans to 7-6. Nelson was thrown out at third on the play, but Dodier quickly replaced her by stealing the bag with Sam Newell at the plate.
What happened next was one of the gutsiest plays you’ll ever see in a high school softball game. Mascenic’s battery was locked into a routine: Labrie would fire home, Wayrynen would toss it back and each would look over to the dugout to get the next pitch call. Labrie got Newell looking and went to work on Coulter with two outs. A strike, looking. A foul ball. Labrie fired one more pitch, a ball, and took the throw back from Wayrynen, and then — panic. Dodier broke for the plate on the throwback, a delayed steal. Wayrynen tossed her helmet and blocked the plate and Labrie threw it back in, but it was too late, and Dodier sprung up in a cloud of dust as her bench erupted. The game was tied.
“You just ask yourself — how could that happen?” Stauffeneker said.
That sort of momentum swing can bury a team, especially one as young as the Vikings, and once Mascenic went 1-2-3 in the seventh, things looked grim.
Labrie struck out the leadoff batter in the bottom of the seventh and induced a groundout for the second out. Kylie Bailey came up and reached on yet another Viking error. Millett singled and Maddie Bean drew a full-count walk to put Labrie in the toughest spot of the freshman’s young career.
“The funny thing about her is that she has no idea what the moment is,” Stauffeneker said. “She just goes out and pitches. She’s not thinking about, ‘Oh, that’s the winning run out there that could knock us out of the state tournament. She just does her job. Her poise and her maturity for a freshman is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
Labrie struck out Nelson on three pitches to end the inning. With two outs in the top of the eighth, she’d hit a huge triple. Wayrynen, the senior captain, came to the plate with two down.
“Casey was great this year,” Stauffeneker said. “As far as leadership for the younger kids, she took them right under her wing. It was awesome to watch her.”
Wayrynen capped off her career with one more big hit, as she drove in Labrie with a double to give Mascenic an 8-7 lead. Comtois would strike out and strand Wayrynen, but Mascenic was right where they wanted to be, again, winning with just three outs to go.
“If someone would have told me that they were going to give me eight runs in the semifinal game against White Mountains, I would have absolutely mortgaged the farm on it, and I would have lost my house!” Stauffeneker said.
Dodier walked and Newell singled; both advanced on the throw and White Mountains had the winning run on second with no outs.
Labrie, veins icy as ever, took down Coulter with three pitches, the last sending the White Mountains slugger spinning as she swung and missed. That left Tristan Enderson up with one out. Ender son turned on the first pitch she faced and sent it to left, past Meagan Brand, and it was over, Newell hot on Dodier’s heels as both would score for a 9-8 win.
“It’s tough to swallow,” Stauffeneker said. “That’s a stinging loss, and it showed in the huddle, where every girl in that huddle was just crying her eyes out because it was really just a tough one to lose. But at the same time you hope that they learn from it.”
Mascenic circled up in the outfield, devastated, as White Mountains circled the outfield at a sprint, used to the situation, as they’ve been to the finals four straight years.
The Vikings are in a much different situation. It was this team’s first taste of real success on the field, and with every starter but Wayrynen returning next season, that taste of defeat should go a long way to shaping the young team’s destiny.
“I told them: ‘Remember the feeling of sitting here in this outfield with this other team celebrating behind you,” Stauffeneker said. “Remember this feeling. You don’t want to feel it again.’”