For the second consecutive year, the East Haven softball team matched up against an SCC school that it had defeated twice during the regular season when the Yellowjackets opened play in the Class L State Tournament. Unfortunately for East Haven, this year’s outcome was the same as last year, as the 14th-seeded Yellowjackets took a 14-11 home loss against No. 19 Lauralton in a first round contest on May 30. East Haven completed its season with a record of 13-9.

“It was the exact same thing as last year. We beat Mercy twice during the year, but it’s tough to beat a team three times. When we drew [Lauralton], I said, ‘Oh no, not again,’” Head Coach Ed Crisafi said. “We picked a bad day to do things bad. We didn’t pitch well, we didn’t field well, and we didn’t hit for the first two innings. By then, it was already 8-0.”

There were 10 SCC teams in the Class L bracket, and Crisafi figured that East Haven would have to face one of them eventually. The coach knows that playing an SCC team in the first round is a difficult task for any squad.

“[Julia SanGiovanni and Jess Stettinger] were members of the team that made the long run when they were freshmen, but the others have gone one and done for two years in a row now. I told them it’s time to end their careers next year by making a long run through states again. They’re more than capable,” Crisafi said. “This year, the L was wide open with the [top three seeds] all getting beat. If we just got by that first game, you never know.”

East Haven was on the cusp of being a Class M team this season. The Yellowjackets would not have played any SCC schools if they were in the Class M State Tournament.

“The cutoff for Class M was 430 girls in the school, and we had 431, so we were the last L team and one away from being in Class M,” Crisafi said. “We’re the second-smallest school number-wise in the SCC, and we never know if we’ll be in Class L or Class M. It all depends on how the numbers change within the school.”

In the states’ game against Lauralton Hall, Taylor Myers started on the mound for East Haven, which fell behind 2-0 after the first inning. Coach Crisafi felt that the Yellowjackets should have escaped the opening frame with no damage.

“In the first inning, they scored two runs, but we dropped two balls in the outfield,” he said. “Girls made long runs and got to the ball, but then dropped it. It should’ve been a 1-2-3 inning.”

Lauralton scored another run in the second inning and added five more in the third to extend its lead, but East Haven didn’t go away without a fight. East Haven came back by scoring five runs in the third inning, highlighted by a three-run home run from Stettinger.

Selena Mauro came in to pitch for the Yellowjackets and gave up a run in the fourth to make it 9-5, but East Haven responded once again by plating four runs in the bottom of the inning to cut the deficit to 9-8. The Yellowjackets had a chance to take a lead for the first time with the bases loaded and two outs, but Lauralton’s pitcher induced a fly out to end the threat.

In the sixth inning, Lauralton pushed its lead to 14-8 behind more timely hitting and a few East Haven errors. The Yellowjackets scored three runs in the seventh, but couldn’t complete the comeback. Stettinger had three hits, including the home run, to go with two walks and five RBI for East Haven. Mauro, SanGiovanni, and Megan Roberts all had two hits apiece.

“We had 12 hits, but they had 15 hits. We also made seven errors for the game,” Crisafi said. “When you allow 15 hits and seven errors, you’re going to give up 14 runs. Only six of them were earned.”

With the 2017 season in the books, Coach Crisafi has already drawn up his offseason plan. The Easties will only graduate senior captain Fallon Speers from this year’s team, and so Crisafi feels confident that his club can come back and make a deep run next spring.

“It’s time to work hard again in the offseason like they did this year and put it all together. We just lose Fallon, who will be tough to replace, but everyone else is back,” said Crisafi. “There’s no reason that we can’t make a run. We had our [streak of winning division titles] broken this year, so there’s a lot of things we have to do.”