Woodbury Senior League Softball Takes Title, Snaps Pitman's Streak

Woodbury’s Senior League softball team was out of options.

With a loss on their record and facing a 7-2 deficit through three innings to defending champ Pitman—untouchable in the last eight District 15 title games—the Woodbury girls had only one path out of Alcyon Park:

Win or fold up the season.

As the scoreboard flipped to the fifth inning, Woodbury—which was cobbled together with players from six different towns—finally found that spark.

Marissa Cappello, who had come in to pitch in the fourth, slashed a single through Pitman’s defense, kicking off five consecutive hits by Woodbury, including an RBI double by Emily Hilt to tip the score in Woodbury’s favor for the first time all game.

Cappello would take command on the mound from there in, striking out five and shutting out Pitman the rest of the way, while Woodbury’s starter, Sydney Ponto, who struck out seven in three innings, would go on to cap the scoring in the sixth to cement the 11-7 win.

“If we had lost the first one, we would’ve been done,” coach Bill Coulter said.

But it wasn’t over yet.

With the first game in the books, it was on to the deciding game for the district title, and Woodbury left no question they were in it to win.

Zeaenna Brackett smashed a double to left to open the game, and Woodbury batted around in the first, jumping out to a 6-0 lead over Pitman.

It turned into a scramble on the mound for Pitman, as they cycled through pitchers to try to stem the tide—and with some success, as Woodbury would only get one more run through the third inning, when Pitman was able to get to Cappello, who started Game 2 just 20 minutes after the end of Game 1, and tighten the score to a 7-6 lead for Woodbury.

But with the Woodbury girls screaming their mantra from the dugout—“Finish it,” taken from Alabama softball’s motto—Pitman would never get any closer.

Two innings later, Woodbury broke it wide open on Patience Coulter’s two-run double. They added insurance runs in the sixth and seventh, and after Cappello was pulled—she had struck out six in the game—Ponto came on to close it out.

She did more than that—Ponto slammed the door, striking out all three batters she faced to ice the title for Woodbury.

“Their pitching was phenomenal, we just got on them,” Bill Coulter said of Pitman. “The difference-maker was our hitting.”

It would’ve been hard for the coach not to tip his hat to Pitman—besides their 8 straight titles, Pitman had won their last with a 19-17 win over Woodbury last year, and had beaten Woodbury earlier in the district tournament.

Finally breaking through to the championship was the exclamation point on what was a remarkable District 15 run—the girls had gone 13-0-1 in the regular season—for Woodbury, which only fielded five players from its home base. Seven others came from five surrounding towns to fill out the roster, and Bill Coulter said there’s always some uncertainty in bringing together a group like his team.

“These girls jelled quickly, motivated one another and brought each others’ game level up,” he said.

Now the challenge is to duplicate that effort at the sectional level, which begins Thursday night down in Elmer, where Woodbury will face Monroe Township at 6 p.m.