Lely softball falls after furious late Gulf Coast rally

The Lely High School softball team returned to action following spring break, looking to build on a 7-1 start.

The young, upstart group from Gulf Coast High had other ideas.

The Sharks, with six freshmen in the starting lineup, battled back time after time Tuesday night. Gulf Coast finally took its first lead with a four-run outburst in the top of the seventh, then escaping a bases-loaded jam in the bottom half of the frame for a 9-8 victory at Lely.

“Gulf Coast is better than their record, that’s a good team over there,” Lely coach Rich Costante said. “(Coach) Amy Lovett does a great job. I’ll take the blame, we weren’t ready to play. Maybe all the hoopla before the game with the staff appreciation night, maybe that distracted the girls a little bit and I’ll take the blame for that, that’s my fault.”

Katie Moss had a nice night at the dish for the Trojans, going 3 for 4 with a pair of doubles. Her two-run double in the bottom of the first gave Lely an early 3-1 lead. Gulf Coast tied it in the third on an RBI double by Char Mayer and a run-scoring single by Dana Klassen, but the Trojans immediately answered with a three-run bottom half of the third, with help from some shoddy Sharks defense.

Lely softball success will be determined by pitchers

Gulf Coast added two more runs in the top of the fourth, but the inning could have been much worse, if not for a pair of brilliant catches by Lely senior center fielder Sivan Palacios. She made a run-saving catch deep to the gap in left-center, snagging the ball on the dead run to rob Brooke O’Regan of a sure double. Later, she ended the inning with a diving catch on a line-shot by Charlie Durani, robbing her of a two-run single that would have put the Sharks on top.

“In my opinion, she’s the best defensive center fielder in the area,” Costante said. “I don’t even get that excited about it because she does it every day in practice. Defensively, she’s one of the best outfielders I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame we can’t have her patrol center field every inning of every game, because we need her on the mound or behind the plate.”

Palacios was summoned to the mound after four up-and-down innings by starter April Alvarado, and she initially did well, keeping the Sharks off the board in the fifth and sixth innings.

Meanwhile, the Trojans scored a pair of insurance runs on Lily Manning’s two-run single in the bottom of the sixth, putting Lely up 8-5. Manning drove in four runs on the night.

Things unraveled for Lely in the seventh, as the never-say-die Gulf Coast squad staged a furious rally. The fateful outburst started innocently enough with a pair of infield singles, with a run scoring on an infield out. The key to the entire inning was the at-bat put forth by freshman Angelina Raye, the Shark’s No. 9 hitter. She had struggled to make contact up to that point, but shortened her swing and looped an RBI single to right field, making it 8-7 and bringing Gulf Coast’s best hitter to the plate in senior Gaby Bockhaut.

“Great at-bat, I’m very proud of her,” Lovett said. “This weekend, we had a team bonding for three days. No parents, just kids, no phones. And it really showed tonight, how they all really wanted to fight for each other. I love this team.”

Bockhaut, who hit the ball hard all night long, ripped a triple to right-center to score the tying run.

Lovett said she’s proud of the way Bockhaut has led this young squad. Gulf Coast lost nearly all of its district championship team last season to graduation, with Bockhaut one of the only holdovers.

“She lost her friends, but she’s been such a great leader for these young girls,” Lovett said. “She came out on fire tonight and came up with the big hit for us.”

Bockhaut scored on the second RBI double of the night for freshman Kaylea Evans, completing the comeback and giving the Sharks their first lead.

Prep softball: Lely's big bats have Trojans off to 7-1 start

“This is huge for us,” Lovett said. “We have six freshmen on the field, but we have a lot of heart. When we celebrate, we celebrate as a team, and I love that. We knew at some point, what we do in practice would pay off. It just happened to be tonight.”

For the Trojans, they don’t have much time to sulk and dwell on the loss. The competition gets even better this weekend, when Lely travels to the Gulliver Prep Slam Fest in Pinecrest. The Trojans face Coral Reef, a talented Class 9A school, and then South Fork, a quality 7A squad, in the first two games of the tournament.

“We’re going to go down there and see what we’re made of,” Costante said. “We want to see where we’re at. I told the girls before break that when we came back, we’d see a gauntlet of teams, and it’s definitely starting now.”