By Ken Chaisson
Hometown Weekly Correspondent
The Walpole girls’ softball team finally took to the diamond against the Braintree Wamps on a brisk, sunny day in early April at the Walpole Middle School.
Braintree bested Walpole, 6-3, for their first victory against the Timberwolves since 2019. It was Walpole’s first regular season game after multiple scrimmage cancellations and a postponement.
It was the first game in two years at the East Street diamond for Walpole. The enhanced softball facility includes dugouts, a new scoreboard, better drainage, a score shed, foul ball netting and a batting cage.
Walpole graduated their entire outfield, their infield corners and all-everything Sharlotte Stazinski who is 5-1 on the mound for Colby College which is ranked in the top 30 in the country.
The Timberwolf captains Caitlin Baker, Grace Todd and Sienna Kreuzer lead a core that includes junior catcher Abby Riley. Todd is a returning Bay State Conference all star.
Head coach Rachael Sprague is in her 13th year leading the Walpole varsity squad. After beating Westfield in the state final in 2024, the Ladytimbs fell to Westfield in extra innings in the state quarterfinals last season.
“Even though we graduated the majority of our starting lineup, we have strong leadership in our three seniors, a solid group of athletes who are ready to fill those spots, and a handful of new prospects that we are excited to watch grow and contribute to our program,” said Sprague, during the pre-season.
Walpole is ranked #19 in the Boston Globe pre-season poll and first in the Mass Live Bay State Conference rankings.
Baker started the game on the mound for Walpole. She helped her own cause with a leadoff triple to left center in the second inning. Kreuzer then knocked her in with a sacrifice fly to put the hometown team up 1-0.
Braintree bounced right back in the top of the third stringing together singles and doubles to take the lead 3-1. It could have been worse but Riley picked a wandering Wamp off second base.
Riley then continued her contributions in the bottom of the third with a two run home run deep down the left field line to knot the score at 3. However, that would be the Timberwolves last run.
In the fourth, Braintree threatened again. With two outs and two runners on base, second basewoman Todd made a tremendous diving backhanded stop of a line drive, then tossed it to Kreuzer covering second for the force to get out the jam.
In the fifth, Braintree led off with a solo homerun to centerfield to give the Wamps the lead they would not relinquish, 4-3. Todd ended that inning again with a deft stab of a line drive to save more damage.
Junior Ellie Boland toed the rubber in the sixth for Walpole. Frequently when the leadoff batter walks, it leads to bad things. This was one of those cases when a single turned into a homerun with wild attempts to get runners on the base paths. That put Braintree up 6-3.
But the Lady Timbs did not go quietly. They had two runners on in the sixth when Boland crushed a shot to left field but the Braintree leftfielder was playing very deep on the fenceless outfield and tracked it down for an out. In the seventh Walpole again put two runners on but couldn’t come up with the key hit.
