Rams keep rolling

NORTH BERWICK — Just call them the quiet leaders of York County.

Without anyone realizing it (other than themselves), the Kennebunk softball team stands at the top of the York County softball mountain. The Rams are ranked fourth in the Maine Principal Association Heal Point Standings, trailing Cumberland County juggernauts Scarborough, South Portland and McAuley.

The Rams continued to make their case as the top team in the area on Monday, beating Noble 7-3, and raising their record to 8-2 on the season, tied for the top record in York County with Biddeford and one win above Thornton Academy (7-3).

Kennebunk catcher Janelle Bouchard said teamwork and effort in practice has led the Rams to its current success.

“I think our teamwork has been really excellent this year,” Bouchard said. “Everybody has been working really hard in practice. The perfect example was today, we always put 100 percent [effort] forward. We grinded out a few runs today that we really needed in order to win this game. It was a good win for us today, it was a really great team effort.”

However, Kennebunk is on its way to its biggest challenge yet on the season starting next week, with games against Thornton, Biddeford and Scarborough. The Scarborough game will be the only one of the three to be played at home.

“I think from here on out we’re just going to have to believe in ourselves,” Bouchard said. “We’ve been working this hard and we need to trust in our abilities with what we’ve been able to do thus far and that should help us out a little bit.”

Bouchard led the Rams offensively against Noble, smacking her sixth home run of the season off a Shawnee Slattery fastball in the second inning.

The Rams also had help from pitcher Hannah King, who overcame early struggles to settle down and strikeout nine Noble batters.

After a scoreless first inning, Kennebunk opened the scoring in the second with Bouchard’s home run. Bouchard hit the ball deep to centerfield, and Noble centerfielder Amylie Anderson made a great effort to make a catch over the wall, but was unable to wrangle the ball back in.

Bouchard said she wasn’t really sure if she had hit a home run.

“Honestly, it felt really good coming off the bat, so I just put my head down and started running,” Bouchard said.

The runs stayed all in the family four batters later, when Brianna Bouchard, Janelle’s sister, would come through, plating Kelly King on an RBI single to give the Rams a 2-0 lead.

The Rams scored two more runs in the top of the third when Janelle Bouchard plated Racher Magalski on an RBI groundout and Kelly King scored Carinn Burns on an RBI single to make the score 4-0.

The Knights fought back in the bottom of the third however, scoring three runs, thanks to RBI singles by Nicole Lanoie and Hannah Carlin, as well as an RBI groundout by Hilary Allen, making the score 4-3.

Kennebunk put another run on the scoreboard in the fifth when Burns plated Magalski on a sacrifice fly. The Rams sealed the game in the sixth, when Hannah King scored from third after a Brianna Bouchard strikeout, and Kelsey Livermore scored on a sacrifice fly hit by Jennifer Richardson.

Hannah King took care of the Noble batters, striking out four of the final six batters to end the game.

Bouchard credited King for coming back to fight off the Knights batters.

“We’ve been playing together since we were really little,” Bouchard said. “She did a great job today. She battled back. We had a couple of rough innings but she came back really strong and she did really well today.”