Mansfield Softball Shuts out Stoughton

Mansfield pitcher Trish Hansen silenced Stoughton Wednesday afternoon at Stoughton field.

Hansen struck out eight of the first ten batters she faced, including seven in a row at one point, holding Stoughton to three hits in a 12-0 victory for the Hornets.

Stoughton falls to 4-3, as a result, while Mansfield improves to 3-3.

“We faced a tough team. Hansen does a great job. She has good speed, she can mix her pitches—she kept us off balance all day,” Stoughton coach Janet Sullivan said.

Mansfield coach Jinneane Sperrazza said her team had 12 hits, but left 12 runners on base in a 6-3 loss at Taunton on Tuesday. She said her team did a better job of “stringing the hits together” against Stoughton.

“We really kind of hammered home making the plays and stringing the hits together and I think that’s what we did,” Sperrazza said. “I think [Tuesday] we were one big hit from breaking it open and [against Stoughton] we actually had the big hit.”

Mansfield scored four runs in the top of the first, setting the tone for the game. After making it 5-0 in the second, Stoughton pitcher Emily Cramer kept Mansfield quiet in the third and fourth innings, but the Hornets came back to score seven runs over the last three innings, including five in the fifth.

Stoughton’s best chance to score came in the fourth. Megan Flaherty doubled with two outs and Nicole Hayner followed with a single, but a well-executed relay, got Flaherty at the plate before she was able to score.

“You’re not going to get too many wins with three hits,” Sullivan said. We have to do a little better job at the plate. But, the big story was we had mental lapses and our defense was not up to our normal standards.”

Stoughton hosts Quincy, a team it beat 2-1 on the road earlier this season, on Friday.

While Sullivan said the Mansfield loss was a “setback“ in what has otherwise been a positive start to the season, the coach wasn’t about to panic: “We’re 4-3. We’re in good shape. We’re playing well. We’re coming together as a team,” she said.