Molloy Falls Short

The aftermath to Molloy’s 7-2 loss to Long Island dynamo, the Holy Trinity Titans in the Catholic state championship game last week was odd. They drank bubbling apple cider, giggled, and laughed. There were no tears, no wet cheeks, no crumpled, moaning bodies laid out on the Red Storm Field grass when it was over.
Disappointing, yes. Heartbreaking, no.
Maybe it was because the Titans’ ace right-hander Jenna Vanacore was so dominant early, striking out 15 overall in the complete-game performance, and seven of the first eight batters she faced, throwing first-pitch strikes to all of them. And that Molloy came charging back with a two-run fifth on the heels of Kayley Ferran’s run-scoring double and Cristina DiRe’s opposite field single that plated Ferran with the tying run. Or, that only recently, they etched their names in the Briarwood school’s history books by winning the CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan crown for the first time.
“It’s just a great honor,” said sophomore hurler Janelle Boyd, who came on in relief of Ferran. “We’re proud we made it this far.”
“It’s really great, because we were a good bunch this year,” said Ferran, who started the game, giving up two earned runs in four and 1/3 innings. “It meant a lot to all of us, especially for our coaches. We always came up a run short in the [Brooklyn/Queens] semifinals, and we finally got there to the championship [and won]. It meant a lot to everyone. We most wanted the championship, which we won, and I guess we wanted to win this game. But we knew it was going to be hard.”
Of course, the state title was there for the taking, the game knotted at two when the seventh inning began. It was then that it all fell apart for the Stanners. Boyd, the hero of the Brooklyn/Queens final, walked the leadoff hitter. Third baseman Stephanie Peralta hesitated on Kathryn Banks’ sacrifice bunt, and later booted Vanacore’s three-hopper, plating the go-ahead runs. Boyd would be tagged for three more runs, allowing run-scoring shots to Katherine Torrellas and Bernadette Fuentes.
“We had one bad inning,” Rosenbaum lamented. “Otherwise, we were very much in the game.”
“That just messed the whole thing up,” center fielder Tiffany Ott said of the sloppy seventh. “If that didn’t happen, we definitely had them. If we had more time, we could’ve come back.”
Ferran warned her team of the stiff test they would be facing in Vanacore. She shares a pitching coach with the talented right-hander in Hicksville, so she knew about her dynamite stuff. “I said heads up,” she joked. However, there was no preparing the Stanners for Vanacore’s four-pitch repertoire, the live fastball, curve, drop, and devastating changeup.
“Everyone was reaching for it,” Ott, who got the first of three Molloy hits in the fifth inning, said of the off-speed delivery, “and nobody could get it.”
It did not diminish the historic season, not one bit. The first B/Q title was still fresh in the Stanners’ memory afterwards, with future crowns dancing in their heads.
“I want it again next year,” Ott said.