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Sports

New Providence Softball Moves Past Dunellen 7-4

The team now advances to the State Tournament Finals, scheduled for this Thursday.

The prevailing wisdom has been that this New Providence varsity softball team typically needs an inning or two to really get into the run-scoring groove.

That tendency, however, creates an expectation that eventually someone will provide the spark that kicks off a rally to capture wins — but no one can ever predict when it will come.

"You can even hear them say (hitting is) contagious," said head coach Kelly Villa. "All year they've waited for someone to (spark) it and then the others follow right along. It seems it's been like that all year and it's always someone different... they need that trigger."

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The Pioneers waited until the final innings to find that spark on Tuesday afternoon at Allen W. Roberts school, which snowballed into a rally and put away the Dunellen Destroyers 7-4 in the North 2, Group I sectional semifinal of the State Tournament.

"Some of our players said that they had jitters," said pitcher Cassandra Squeri. "We needed to relax. Someone just needed to start hitting and then everyone would start hitting."

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The Pioneers opened their scoring in the third inning when Michelle Ciarrocca cracked a two-run double to left — a hit that brought the game to a 2-2 tie. The Destroyers had gotten out to an early lead by chipping away Squeri's pitching with a three-hit, one-run first and a two-hit, one-run second.

"We came into this game knowing that they were good hitters, and Michelle and I just had to start mixing up the pitches and keeping it away from the big part of the bats," Squeri said.

The Destroyers picked up two more runs — one in the fourth and another in the fifth — on what appeared to be error-prone Pioneer play. After the Destroyers went up 4-2 at the end of the fifth, it appeared that hopes of winning had been dashed.

"We had a few mishaps, but they bounced back. We did not have that one bad inning that we had against Roselle Park," Villa said.

Villa said there were some game time jitters before Tuesday's game because of a similar sequence in the Union County Tournament when the Pioneers beat David Brearley team three times to advance to the final, only to get slammed by Governor Livingston 10-0 in the final itself.

"They were nervous," Villa said. "This time they said, 'we beat Roselle Park three times, now this is our chance.'" 

Any jitters that may have been present faded as the game wore on. In the Pioneer fifth, Jess Pacheco kicked off the inning with a double. Squeri followed with a single, then catcher Michelle Ciarrocca smacked a two-RBI double to left. 

"This was the first game that I hit like that since last year," Ciarrocca said. "I was so happy after hitting. Right after we started hitting, then I knew it would just carry on."

Three base hits later and the Pioneers had picked up four runs in the inning and one in the sixth and then breathed a sigh of relief. 

"In the end, we played as a good team and everyone contributed to the win," Squeri said. "The team was coming up with big hits and making plays in the field. I think all in all, we played really well." 

The Pioneers will face Whippany Park in the North 2, Group I State Tournament Final this Thursday, 4 p.m., at Whippany Park High School.

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