GRANBY — The seventh-seeded Granby softball team beat No. 10 Smith Vocational, 14-2, on Friday to advance to the quarterfinal round of the Western Massachusetts Division 3 Tournament.
The game ended in six innings after the Rams scored four runs to bring the 12-run mercy rule into play.
Despite only picking up three hits, the Rams took advantage of a number of pass balls and 12 walks to produce baserunners.
Abi Beauregard struck out five and allowed three hits in the complete-game victory.
“I try to just not throw around the plate and not give them a direct strike right down the middle,” Beauregard said. “I was really hoping we could win this one because we lost first round last year so it’s great to be able to move forward.”
Granby coach Gary Casey was confident that his pitcher would get the job done.
“I knew if she threw strikes we’d have a pretty good chance,” he said. “They had some late swings and then when they put the ball in play we just had to make plays. Abi pitched well.”
Trailing 3-0 after the first inning, Smith Voke scored two runs in the top of the third.
“I was kind of nervous because I didn’t like the way we swung the bat in the first couple of innings and I thought their pitcher threw pretty well,” Casey said. “So I was just hoping for us to make the plays that we had to.”
Granby (12-9) will bring its six-game winning streak to Sheffield where it will play No. 2 Mount Everett (18-2) on Monday. Mount Everett beat No. 15 Commerce, 20-0.
Casey said his team will have batting practice this weekend in preparation for the game.
The Vikings, who finished the season 14-7, were coming off the a Tri-County League championship. It was the first time a girls team won a league title in school history.
Smith Voke coach Nelson Lacey said that his team was missing several key players.
“I don’t know what (Granby) was doing that was effective, we were doing quite a bit that wasn’t effective,” Lacey said. “We didn’t show up to play this game.”
The Vikings were missing three starters.
“I think any time anybody is missing on a team it absolutely adds more pressure to the players and bench,” Lacey said. “We were down about four players today.”
Although the Vikings were eliminated from the Western Mass. tournament, Lacey said his team still has one more game against Bristol County in the State Small Vocational Championship game at a date to be determined.
“We’re going to bring our game, that’s a lot of what we talked about today,” he said. “That we’re not going to get down on ourselves, we’re going to take it and learn from it and know that we can’t show up like this, in this state of mind for that game.”
Mallory Beauregard walked twice, scored twice and had one RBI for Granby. Julia Gauvin singled twice and scored three runs. Kate Sullivan (two walks, hit) and Emily Sawyer each scored three runs.
Allison Kowalczyk (run) had two hits, while Maddisin Atkinson (run) added one for Smith. Samantha Von Haugg allowed three hits in the loss.