Team USA Softball Comes to Southern Maryland

As a part of their exhibition series leading into the World Cup of Softball in two weeks, the United States Softball team came to Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf to take on a team of Maryland All-Stars in a doubleheader. The women that made up the Maryland All-Stars were division 1 college players that had gone to high school in the state of Maryland. Locals that played in the game were Molly Simpson, of McDonough High School, and Rachel Heinze, of St. Mary’s Ryken.

In the first game, the Maryland All Stars made it through all 7 scheduled innings.  That was all the good news they had during the game. As a team, they only mustered two hits, and only had one base runner advance past second base. For the national team, they had only one scoreless inning, but had a hit or base runner in every inning.  They pushed across two runs in the first two innings each, and added 1 run in the 3rd, 5th, and 6th to win the game 7-0.

After a 15 minute pause between the two games, the second began the same way as the first.  The Maryland All Stars were baffled by the pitches that the national team was throwing at them. For the first four innings, the Maryland All-Stars had only one hit. In that time, they had only allowed 3 runs. So, the game was still in striking distance.

In the fourth inning, the Maryland team did what no other team on the exhibition tour could do; put up a run on the national team.  It all started with an Erin Pronobis walk. She was bat around the bases one-by-one by her teammates, eventually scoring on a Paige Briganti base hit. In the home half, the US team made them pay. They scored 5 runs on 5 hits, and took advantage of every mistake made by the women from Maryland.

The Maryland team pushed another run across in the 5th. This time Molly Simpson hit a double, and later scored on a Sammy Bost single up the middle. The joy from this run was short lived, as the national team plated 3 runs in the bottom of the 5th, including the walk-off home run by Sierra Romero to inflict the mercy rule. Team USA won 11-2 in 5 innings.