The young ladies from Bristol’s Senior League Softball division came to play for a State Championship on Monday in a best of three series hosted at Rockwell Park.  After winning the District 12 tournament over Stafford a week earlier, the defending Senior League Connecticut State Champions from Mansfield-Ashford brought their talented squad led by Dakota Babbitt and Zoey Pietres to Bristol to face the team that went to the Junior League state final a year earlier.  This matchup promised to not only advance the winner to the Eastern Regionals in Worcester, Massachusetts, but it also promised to pit two strong offenses against one another for the opportunity to earn the Connecticut State Senior League championship.

Bristol’s squad won the coin flip and elected to be the home team.  That placed 14-year old Brooklynne Whitlock on the rubber for Bristol, with a talented defense led by Shortstop Desiree Nickerson and First Baseman Hailey Beebe behind her.  Whitlock walked the first batter, Julia Winskof, but quickly calmed down to induce slow ground balls to second baseman Makayla Antunes and third baseman Arianna Rivera to capture the first two outs of the game.  Mansfield’s Pietres hit a high fly ball to Right Fielder Cierra Jones to end the top half of the first inning, stranding Winskof at third.

The bottom half of the inning would not be nearly as quiet for Bristol.  Nickerson led off the inning drawing a walk on four pitches, stealing two bases on consecutive pitches.  Rivera followed with a single up the middle, scoring Nickerson to give Bristol an immediate 1-0 lead.  Jones also drew a four pitch walk.  Beebe hit a deep line drive to right center field to score Rivera and Jones.  Antunes and Left Fielder Leah Webber each walked on a total of 9 pitches, and then Whitlock hit a 3-2 pitch up the middle to give Bristol a 5-0 lead.  

But the bottom of the first still wasn’t over.  Bristol’s ninth batter of the inning, Kayla Webber, worked a full count before singling to left field.  That brought lead off hitter Desiree Nickerson back to the plate.  She promptly took the 2-2 offering deep to centerfield for a standup triple clearing the bases.  Nickerson and Jones would later score on an RBI double off the bat of Beebe, and Bristol had a huge number 10 on the scoreboard after one inning.

With a 10-0 lead, the Bristol Seniors committed three errors in the top half of the second inning, which led to three runs for Mansfield-Ashford.  Whitlock struck out two batters and induced a groundout back to the mound on a 1-2 change up that ended the nning.  

The bottom of the second inning was much of the same for Bristol as eight batters came to the plate to score four more runs and give Bristol a 14-3 advantage.  

Whitlock threw just 10 pitches in the third inning, striking out one and inducing two more ground outs to retire the side in order.  

All nine Bristol batters came to the plate in the bottom of the third inning.  The highlight of the inning came off of the bat of Kayla Czaplicki, who entered the game as a replacement for Antunes, who had injured her foot during the top half of the previous inning. Czaplicki hit a deep line drive triple that fell just short of the centerfield fence, scoring catcher Olivia Gallup.  Czaplicki would score on the next pitch as Leah Webber’s sacrifice gave Bristol a 16-3 lead in the third inning.  

Bristol would plate two more runs before it was all said and done, defeating the Mansfield-Ashford team by mercy rule, 18-7 in four and a half innings.

Game two of the best of three series will be played on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. from Rockwell Park.

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