Sutphin throws fifth shutout of season
By Dan Roem
Another game, another ace performance for Battlefield pitcher Megan Sutphin.The senior struck out seven Fauquier hitters in a complete-game softball shutout Friday evening at home in Haymarket.
Catcher Courtney Liddle and left fielder Kelsey Sayres backed her up with RBI triples in the first and third innings that launched Battlefield (8-1 overall, 4-0 Cedar Run District) to a 6-0 win over the visiting Falcons (3-3, 0-3).
“Getting the runs early really calms my mindset,” said Sutphin (5-1).
If she had a weak spot, Fauquier just could not find it, nor could Liberty on Tuesday when she blanked the Eagles as part of an 8-0 Battlefield win.
With one out in the top of the seventh inning against Fauquier, the senior ace whiffed left fielder Caitlyn Foley on a 1-2 fastball. The next batter, Stacy Linthicum, met a similar fate on the same count but instead of the heat, Sutphin delivered a knee-high, floating change up for a called third strike.
“We work on focusing on the ball, trying to find a spot where it’s going to come off her hip and trying to see it,” noted Fauquier coach Mark Ott, now in his seventh season. “Evidently, it didn’t work very well tonight.”
According to Battlefield coach Joe Schelzo, Sutphin’s pinpoint accuracy has been one of her best assets this season.
“She helps herself because, first of all, her drop-curve outside is working,” he said. “She was getting calls there; that makes it tough. And then she was throwing her change up for strikes.”
A solid drop-curve and an accurate change up made up for a solid combination from the fourth-year varsity starter against Fauquier.
“When you put those two together, she’s very hard for a batter to deal with,” Schelzo reckoned, later adding, “you saw some of those batters’ knees buckle.”
Foley and right fielder Jill Onstad registered the only hits versus Sutphin, who also walked two batters. Those that did get on base though, did not stay for long.
After catcher Mel Eckberg reached first base on a fourth inning walk, Kelsey Cockrill, up from junior varsity to fill in for the injured Brittany Black, caught a liner in shallow right field and fired it to Shannon Cleary at first base for an inning-ending double play.
“When you have a play like that against you defensively, it kind of takes the air out of you,” Schelzo said.
Sutphin’s counterpart Nikki Roy hung in the game after a rocky first four innings and did not give up a run after the fifth. Ott said it was not so much Roy’s pitching that hurt Fauquier as much as the team’s three errors and multiple runners left on base.
“Her drop ball worked really well tonight,” said the Fauquier coach.
But Ott noticed her rise did not move much, so he opted not call it. And when she threw her bread-and-butter curve ball, the umpire routinely called it a ball for just-missing the outside corner of the plate.
When Sayres cranked her two-run triple in the second inning that brought in Kaitlyn Sileo and Brittney Clendenny, Roy had actually hit her spot.
“She stepped across the plate and hit an outside fastball,” Ott said. “I called a fastball, and my catcher had a target. She said it was in the middle of the left-handers’ batter’s box.”
He said Roy later told him, “Coach, I can’t throw any further outside,” to which Ott wistfully wondered aloud, “What can you do?”
Having dropped three straight district games, Ott said his team basically just needs to play fundamentally sound games to get back into the swing of things.
“The thing that we preach, the thing that we stress [is] the mental mistakes,” he said. “And that’s what hurt us tonight.”
But while Fauquier figures out a winning formula, Battlefield is on cruise control, even with Black being listed day-to-day on the DL due to a jammed thumb.
“Despite the injuries and the nicks we’ve had, we’re doing everything we need to do,” said Schelzo.