St. Francis Prep beats Molloy with late rally

Archbishop Molloy held the lead and their pitcher, ace right-hander Janelle Boyd, was coasting. She had struck out four through as many perfect frames, reminding St. Francis Prep why, as a sophomore, Boyd was the winning pitcher in the Stanners’ first Brooklyn/Queens title last May.
The Terriers, however, remained composed. Of their 10 previous league wins, they had come from behind four times. This would be no different.
Junior first baseman Carla Pennolino led off the top of the fifth with a well-struck single and scored on Nicole Weinman’s base hit up the middle. Weinman, the center fielder, later scored on Stanner shortstop Jennie Angelone’s fielding error. After Molloy tied it in the sixth, St. Francis scored two more times in the ninth, winning the second meeting between the division rivals in dramatic fashion, 4-2.
“It says that when we’re down, we can all pick each other up,” said senior right-hander Krystil Hofmann, who picked up the win after going the entire way, striking out 10 and allowing four hits and two earned runs. “That’s what a team really is.”
Said shortstop Valerie Tratnor, who drove in the game-winning run with an opposite-field single, “We know we can come from behind and we don’t get down on ourselves.”
Hofmann credited their pre-season trip to Virginia for their ability to rally late. They won just once in five games, but hung tough with far superior opposition. Now, no deficit seems quite so daunting. “We bonded so much,” she said.
SFP’s ability to come-from-behind, manager Ann Marie Rich said, comes from the lineup’s versatility. She can ask Pennolino, the Terriers’ cleanup hitter to bunt, or have their designated bunter, No. 8 batter Michelle Pelan, swing away, and drive in important runs.
Of course, there were many twists and turns to this game. Say, if Stanners second baseman Julia Lipovac hadn’t slipped rounding third on teammate Sheri Florio’s game-tying single, the season series may be tied, the two teams knotted atop Brooklyn/Queens instead of St. Francis holding a commanding two-game edge with three games left to play. It was similar to the first meeting, when Molloy scored first and lost in the bottom of the seventh on an error.
“I think we gave the game to them a little bit,” Molloy coach Maureen Rosenbaum said. “You can’t afford to make mistakes, even the slightest mistake and we made a couple. But they outplayed us.”
It sets up an intriguing third tilt between the two on Friday with a rematch of last year’s Brooklyn/Queens final down the road a distinct possibility.