Stoughton High Softball Avenges Season-Opening Loss with Win over Norton

After the lost at Norton 9-1 in the , the two teams met again, this time in Stoughton, Monday afternoon on Patriots’ Day.

In a complete reversal of fortunes, Stoughton’s bats came up with a number of big hits and pitcher Emily Cramer shut down the Norton offense, as the Black Knights defeated the Lancers 8-4, improving to 4-2 on the season.

Megan Flaherty, Nicole Barton and Jordan Angelos led the offensive charge, in what was Stoughton’s best offensive output of the season.

Flaherty had three runs batted in, a pair of singles, a stolen base and a run scored; Barton scored two runs, drove in another, and had a double to go along with two singles; Angelos had a pair of RBI; scored two runs, and had a triple and two singles.

“You had two completely different games,” Stoughton coach Janet Sullivan said of the and Monday’s rematch.

“The last game it was freezing cold temperatures. Here we’re in the high 80s. Last game we played them well if you take out the one inning where we had the [head] injury to Jackie Kuhn which rattled the whole team. We lost complete focus…we played them 2-1 the rest of the game, but we gave up seven that one inning,” Sullivan continued.

“So to come back from a 9-1 loss the first game to today it just said a lot about the team that they’re focused, they’re working hard and our offense has really come around since our opening games.”

Stoughton scored three times in the first and once more in both the second and third innings to build a 5-0 lead.

Norton countered with a run in the top of the fourth when Kathy Remick singled to drive in Meg Brown, but Stoughton responded with three more runs in the bottom of the inning to go up 8-1.

The Lancers scored twice in the fifth (Miranda Donato and Ashley Ciotti) and once in the sixth (Marisa Dole), but Stoughton held on for the 8-4 win.

“It’s nice when you had the lead that we had, you can trade runs for outs,” Sullivan said. “We were more concerned with getting the out and if a runner or two came in we could afford it.”

Sullivan continued, “They’re a good team. You’re not going to hold them scoreless the whole game. We didn’t give up the big inning. We didn’t compound errors. We played some good, solid, smart defense and Emily did a great job pitching on the mound.”

Stoughton goes for its third straight win Wednesday at home against Mansfield (2-2).