By Michael Letendre

The Bristol Central softball squad has been on fire as of late after a tough loss to open the 2022 campaign.

The Rams opened the season with a 3-2 loss at Plainville on Monday, April 11 but since that time, Central has put together five straight wins – outscoring opponents 44-8 as the local’s pitching and defense has been extremely strong.

After that one-run loss to the Blue Devils, Central shutout Platt (8-0) on April 14, dropped Berlin over a sterling 2-0 effort on April 16 and the two days later against Enfield, the Rams roped up a sterling 12-0 victory.

Central’s contest against Enfield just went six innings as Central pitching limited the Eagles to just four hits.

Sophia Torreso was tremendous in the circle and offensively, the Rams smoked out eight hits.

Leah Sklenka led the charge with three hits, including a double while teammate Lorelei Stancavage smacked out a triple and scored three times.

Enfield fell to 4-2 on the season off the loss.

And then this past Thursday, non-conference challenger Pomperaug came to town.

But the venue was changed in Bristol.

Due to unplayable conditions at the high school, the game was shifted to Casey Field.

But the location was hardly the story as Central spun Pomperaug, 16-6, as the locals moved to 4-1 on the season.

On Twitter, Bristol Central coach Monica Hayes awarded the ‘#dirtballer of the day’ award to Gabby Buonafede. 

“In her first varsity start, Gabby came up big offensively when the game was in limbo and closed out the game with two huge defensive plays,” said Hayes on Twitter.

Central’s offense has been on-point as the squad averages just under 8.0 runs-per-game.

Newington no match for the Rams

Central picked up a huge victory on Friday against a very good Newington program by a 6-2 final.

And Torreso was on fire from the start.

The chucker wrangled up 14 strikeouts as Central won for the fifth time on the campaign.

State tournament qualification on the line to end April

Central has a realistic chance of qualifying for state tournament play this coming week.

If the Ram cans run the table against Maloney on Monday in Bristol (3:45 p.m.), Wednesday at Platt (3:45 p.m.), and in a home bout against Hall on Thursday (5:30 p.m.), Central will have win No. 8 in hand.

Big things are on the horizon for the Bristol Central softball program, even before the program’s first city series game takes place.