BATH

You do not have to look far back to see when Morse and Oak Hill squared off in a Class B South high school softball quarterfinal game.

In 2017, the Shipbuilders ended the Raiders’ season with a 9-4 win on the road.

This year, the No. 5 Oak Hill squad hit the road, hoping to return the favor.

Again, Morse proved to be too much as the Shipbuilders received timely hitting and rode the arm of Dory Kulis as the fourth-seeded Shipbuilders blanked the visitors, 7-0 on Thursday afternoon.

Kulis surrendered two hits while fanning 10 Raiders in the complete game performance. The sophomore was also part of the 3-4-5 hitters for Morse that went 6-for-9 at the plate as the home team pounded out 11 hits.

Morse improved to 13-4 and will face No. 1 Wells (12- 5), winners over No. 9 Cape Elizabeth, in the semifinals on Saturday at 11 a.m.. Oak Hill ended its season at 13-4.

While the temperatures felt like an early season late- April game, that was the only similarity. Each team brought playoff intensity and solid defense over the first three innings.

Morse threatened in the bottom of the first. After a leadoff single by Brook Kulis, followed by a one-out knock by her sister Dory, the Shipbuilders had runners on second and third with one out. Clean-up hitter Marissa Parks lined a Sadie Waterman pitch to a straightaway center field, but not deep enough to score the runner from third. The next hitter, Abby Carpenter grounded out to third base to end the inning.

Dory Kulis pitched her way out of no-out jam in the Raiders half of the second. After a leadoff single by Molly Flaherty, Abby Nadeau was hit by a pitch, putting two runners on with no outs for Oak Hill. The next batter popped out to third base before Dory Kulis struck out the next two hitters to retire the side.

The Morse sophomore struck out the next batter to lead off the top of the third inning and then received help from her defense as second baseman Julia Goddard made a diving catch behind first base in shallow right field for the out.

“That was amazing,” Dory Kulis said of the freshman infielder. “I was so proud for her. We have started to come together on defense and play really well defensively.”

Meanwhile, Waterman kept the Morse hitters in check, allowing just a second-inning hit to Goddard over the second and third innings. However, the fourth inning was a different story. Parks led off with a long single to right-center field, followed by a hit to right field by Carpenter. A sacrifice bunt attempt by the Shipbuilders was mishandled, allowing Parks to score from second with the game’s first run. A grounder to third by the next hitter was thrown away during a run down, sending home the second run of the frame.

“Defensively, we made a couple of miscues with runners on base, and it really hurt us,” Oak Hill coach Allyson Collins said.

With runners on first and second, Goddard came to the plate, and after two attempts to lay down a sacrifice bunt were unsuccessful, she took a two-strike pitch and rapped an RBI single to right field for a 3-0 Morse lead.

“I told her she has two tries to get it down, if she couldn’t, then hit a ground ball to the right side to move the runners,” Morse head coach Will Laffely said.

Dory Kulis closed out the fifth inning with a pair of strikeouts, giving her seven.

“In our league, we don’t see pitching of this caliber very much, especially of that speed, and we couldn’t lay off that high heat,” Collins said. “If we could have done that, I think we would have done better, but we just couldn’t lay off it.”

“I play with many of them on a travel team, so it helps I know what they like and don’t,” the Morse pitcher said. “That helped out a lot, but I still have to go out and execute.”

Morse hitters were at it once again in the fifth, leading the inning off with three straight hits off Waterman. A Dory Kulis double and another Parks single set up a two-run base hit by Carpenter, the ’Builders eighth, knocking Waterman out of the game.

“She throws a drop ball. We have a couple of girls that can throw it, so for five days straight, that’s all we worked on,” Laffely said. “What we were trying to do was look for the bottom of the ball and maybe hit the middle of the ball. As the game went on, we started to get our timing down.”

“She’s a work-horse out there and does anything asked of her,” the Oak Hill coach said of her junior pitcher. “She did her part, giving 110 percent. She could have worked the whole game, but I wanted to give them a different look.”

Morse plated two more runs with an RBI hit by catcher Paige Faulkingham and a run-scoring double by Madeline Mitchell to take a 7-0 lead.

Dory Kulis did the rest, allowing just an infield single, while striking out three hitters over the final two innings for the shutout.

“The kids have a lot of faith when she’s on the mound,” Laffely said. “Nothing against our other pitcher Marissa, because she leads so much from the shortstop position.”

Parks also led at the plate as the senior finished with two hits. Dory Kulis also had two hits, including a double, while Carpenter and Goddard each provided a pair of singles.

Morse, which lost in the semifinals to Fryeburg Academy one year ago, carries a nine-game winning streak heading into Saturday’s clash with Wells, and Thursday’s win only boosts the Shipbuilders’ confidence more.

“It definitely does,” Dory Kulis said. “We had a rough patch, but we’re on a win streak now.”

No. 4 Morse 7, No. 5 Oak Hill 0

Class B South Softball Quarterfinal

At Bath
Oak Hill — 000 000 0 — 0 2 2
Morse — 000 340 x — 7 11 1
Sadie Waterman, Molly Flaherty (5)
and Abby Nadeau; Dory Kulis and
Paige Faulkingham.
WP — Kulis; LP — Waterman
Doubles — (Mo) Dory Kulis, Madeline Mitchell.
Repeat hitters — (Mo) Dory Kulis,
Marissa Parks, Abby Carpenter, Paige
Faulkingham, Julia Goddard.
Records — Morse 13-4; Oak Hill 13-
4.
Up next for the Shipbuilders —
Class B South Semifinal Saturday at
No. 1 Wells, 11 a.m.