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Sports

Inside The Springfield Under-10 Championship Season

Coach Jim Wilson reflects on 'dream season'

Springfield's Under-10 softball head coach Jim Wilson lived the proverbial dream this summer when he led his squad to the Parkway League, National East Division championship late last month.   

Armed with his daughter Holly at his side, blowing by the competition, the first-year head coach took his softball team to the top in the unlikeliest of fashion – beating the division's only unbeaten team in the final showdown of the season. Wilson, who admitted that "things didn't start off well" said it was an "amazing thing to see" his team gel at the right time.   

"It's not like we played well all season because in the beginning we weren't playing really well," he said. "We were winning games due to other teams' mistakes like [getting] walks and hit by pitches."    

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Perhaps Wilson should've had an inkling that his team was up to the task after the way Springfield [9-2] won its opener, a 6-5 thriller.       

"We started off the season winning close games, like the New Providence opener when were down to our final out with the bases loaded, and Arianna Griffith had a bases-clearing double to win the game," he said of his left fielder's heroics.      

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Griffith, who went on to hit .500 for the summer, certainly set the tone for the season. And her heroics sparked the squad as they went on to win mostly all of its close games, garnering them the second seed in the Eastern division. Wilson said it was a total team effort of girls rising up at the opportune times against good teams and vanquishing the teams they were supposed to beat.    

"Once we got through Union we started blowing teams out," said Wilson of a 22-7 route of the undermanned squad late in the season. "And come tournament time, games were somewhat close but we still beat teams by five-six runs and mercy-ruled most others…only one game made it to five innings of our six-inning league. Many more were mercy rulings."    

Wilson, who oversaw a team that scored 111 runs and allowed the second-fewest runs [36] during its 10-game regular season, said team camaraderie was also key – for players and parents alike.      

"It was a special team where all the girls actually liked each other – and parents too," he said. "Sometimes with young teams, especially a girls' team, you'll have separate cliqs but this team always hung out together and even our families hung out together. They just loved playing with each other."  

He then joked that with all this success, he's almost leery of next summer.    

"It almost makes me nervous because we played really well," he laughed. "You almost think how much better can this get?"       

Springfield earned the division title on July 27th with a surprising 17-12 win over previously unbeaten Elmora [10-1]. The Elizabeth-area powerhouse earned the number one seed and was one of only two teams to beat Springfield during the regular season.      

"They beat us 8-2 earlier but we got them back in the championship," said Wilson who added that the finale shootout was an anomaly. "We only gave up like three- or four runs during the season. But they were a good team. And they were a very gracious team afterwards; really good sports, which was nice -- unlike Carteret, where some of those girls were kind of snobbish."        

Wilson's squad scored two in the top of the first inning to take the early lead over Elmora and then ran away with the title after an 11-run explosion in the fourth.     

The fact that Springfield earned the second seed was a testament to its grit. They owned a tie-breaker over Mountainside [8-2] due to a 5-4 win earlier in the season and never looked back once the playoffs began.  

Cautious optimism or not, Wilson knows his team is stacked again for next season. His roster should be even better because each player is seasoned and should build upon their successes.   

Among the top players were his daughter Holly, who led the team in every statistical pitching category [9-1 record, two saves, 50 innings pitched, 41 hits allowed, 22 runs allowed, 35 walks, 71 strikeouts, and a 2.64 ERA]; third baseman Karly Fitzpatrick [.610 batting average and led team with 25 hits]; second baseman Amanda Lau [.538 average, .660 on-base percentage, second with 21 hits, and second with 23 runs scored]; and shortstop Arianna DeMartino [.464 average, .727 on-base percentage, and lead the team with 24 runs scored and 24 walks].   

The coach's daughter was perhaps the biggest surprise as she practically built herself into the team's ace. Wilson beamed when talking about her progress.       

"She never pitched before until taking lessons," he said of Holly, who along with Lau was the only other soon-to-be fifth grader. "We owe a lot to [pitching coach] Danielle and her lessons at [Union-based] Frozen Ropes, last fall. [Before the lessons] she wasn't the fastest pitcher but she could throw strikes. Once Danielle came along and taught her the windmill, her speed took off."    

When it came down to it, pitching and stellar defense was the real key to their success, Wilson said.        

"In a lot of our games, pitching was the margin because we won a lot of one-run games," he said. "And we had some great defense that kept us in it, with [first baseman] Kristen Rodriguez, Lau, Arianna [DeMartino], and Fitzpatrick at third."   

Wilson marveled most at what Fitzpatrick could do.    

"She was probably our best girl on the team," said Wilson who added that Fitzpatrick was good enough to travel with the older squads. "She played some U-12 games, too, so she could definitely hang with them. And she was so good that she could easily make the throws to Kristen at first…with other girls, though, it'd be 50/50 to make that kind of throw."        

He soon stopped himself in mid-praise of the team and said that he'd be remiss to not mention the hard work of his staff: assistant coaches Jim Lau, Jahn Kwinta, and Frank DeMartino.   

"I had some good assistants to help me," he said. "We had enough good coaches where I could [delegate] and each would take a group on the side during practices and work with them. It was just a fun season and I look forward to doing it again."

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