CASTLETON – New starting pitcher. New record. New trophy, even.
Same result for Oxbow softball.
Vermont’s premier diamond sports dynasty rolled on to more history on Saturday, picking up steam to blow past third seeded Lake Region 12-0 and win a sixth consecutive VPA Division III championship. It’s the most consecutive championships for any softball program in Vermont history.
“New freshmen come in, new leadership, and as seniors come in and take the role of last year’s seniors,” Oxbow coach Chuck Simmons said. “I couldn’t ask for anything better than that.”
Most crucial in the role to take on was that of starting pitcher. Oxbow won all its first five consecutive championships with Anastase Bourgeois in the circle, allowing just 11 runs across five wins. But with Bourgeois moved on to NCAA Division II West Virginia State, it fell to experienced senior Noemi Rosa to take the ball.
“She knew she had a lot to fill, but she took everything, and went forward with it, and knew she was gonna dominate,” said Simmons.
Sure enough, Rosa did the job, walking just a single batter and forcing plenty of manageable contact to go the distance with a seven-inning shutout.
“Just doing what I know how to do,” said Rosa. “Knowing I have my team behind me, every play, every pitch, that they are the strongest defense, and I have full faith in them as much as I do myself.”
The Olympian fielders committed an error against the second batter of the night and were clean from there, putting away plenty of grounders and flyouts with efficiency. Catcher Maize Bourgeois had the play of the day in the fourth inning, plucking a bunt attempt out of the air and immediately hurling to first base to nab the runner in a rare 2-3 double play.
On the other end, Rosa got plenty of support from an Oxbow offense that picked up from inning to inning, scoring a single run in the second, then two in the third, three in the fourth, and four in the fifth to build a double digit margin.
Kayleigh Davis hit an inside-the-park home run in the fourth inning as the line-leading hit, but Oxbow as a whole was hardly at its hitting best, instead manufacturing runs via baserunning and plate discipline against an error-prone Ranger defense. Lake Region committed seven errors in the game.
The season had a major difference for Oxbow: imperfection. After winning 59 consecutive games, the Olympians lost their streak to Division II Lyndon on April 28 in a 17-7 loss in Bradford, before falling on the road to eventual Division I runner-up Colchester on May 19.
“Losing to Lyndon was a tough loss for us, because for these girls and I, we didn’t feel like we played our best. We got lackadaisical,” said Simmons. “But we knew that we needed to go into the next game, knowing that we take these mistakes, and learn from them, and just be better for each other.”
“That proved that we had to work harder,” senior outfielder Braylee Phelps said of the loss, the first of her and the senior class’s high school careers. “We had to push more. It was gonna happen if we started to get cocky and so we just had to push harder.”
Once it came playoff time, the work paid off. Oxbow handled Thetford and BFA-Fairfax before firing up the bus to drive 87 miles to Castleton, and return to Bradford with a familiar result and a new, Vermont-shaped state championship trophy.
Oxbow will lose Phelps, Bourgeois, Rosa, and Makenna Houston to graduation, but return several more pieces in an attempt at a seventh consecutive state championship.