Union Catholic Softball Boosted by Scotch Plains Team Members

 Already with two more wins than last year's team, the Union Catholic softball squad anticipates receiving its highest seed in some time when the 35th annual Union County Tournament gets put together Sunday night in Linden.

Two players who have sparked the club to a 9-3 start through the month of April have been freshman pitcher Colleen Dow and sophomore utility player Loren Franco. Both are Scotch Plains residents.

Cranford will get the top seed, Governor Livingston the second seed and defending champion Union the third seed. The fourth seed may go to Johnson, leaving the fifth seed up for grabs and most likely between Roselle Park – which reached the semifinals last year – and Union Catholic.

All three Viking losses have been to conference foes Cranford, GL and Johnson, with Union Catholic to face them again in conference play beginning this week.

"We've been pretty excited with the start to our season," said Franco, who on Friday played center field in Union Catholic's 16-1 Union County Conference-Mountain Division home victory over Hillside.

After a non-conference game at Roselle Park Monday, Union Catholic has conference contests scheduled at home against Summit Tuesday, at Cranford Thursday – which could get switched back to Union Catholic at a later date – and at GL next Friday.

"We need to get the bat on the ball a little bit more," Franco said. "We have a pretty solid pitcher here in Colleen, so we feel pretty good."

Franco played on the junior varsity team last year and this season is a valuable player at more than one position.

"I've played center field, shortstop and third base," she said.

Dow did not pitch for the first time Friday, with senior right hander Toniann Beckman going the distance for the mound victory.

Dow played in left field, but will be back on the mound for Monday's game against Roselle Park.

In her first 11 varsity starts, Dow has yielded only 26 runs total for just over two a game.

Dow said her curveball and screwball have been working the best for her thus far.

"I think our defense is solid, but our offense has to be better," Dow said. "We practice well."

Union Catholic fifth-year head coach Ed Ryan realizes this week is an important one for his team and will come right before his squad's first round UCT contest, which will be at home and is scheduled for Saturday, May 8.

"Next week's games, I think, are going to kind of define our season," Ryan said. "Playing better competition like that will help us going into our first county tournament game."

If Union Catholic receives the sixth seed, it means that it will most likely host the 11th seed in its first round clash.

With a solid pitcher in Dow on the mound, Union Catholic has a good chance to advance to the May 14 quarterfinals at Linden's Memorial Field complex.

"I've been around a long time and seen some very good pitchers," Ryan said. "Colleen is not the most dominant fastball pitcher – although she has a very good fastball – but she hits spots very well to make batters hit her pitches. With her screwball, she hits very good inside pitches when girls start leaning over. With a lot of her pitches she likes to go outside and when they start leaning, she comes in, backs them off, gets a strike and then she winds up throwing the curve right after that, so they have to start leaning now towards the plate. With her screwball and curveball, because she gets the corners so well with those, she keeps batters off balance when they're hitting."

In the batting order, Dow was batting second and is now batting fifth.

"With Colleen I wanted to take a little bit of offensive pressure off her and get her down in the five slot so she could concentrate on her pitching," Ryan said.

Franco bats right below Dow in the lineup.

"Loren is, mainly, one of our utility outfielders, she can play left, center or right," Ryan said. "She has a very good arm. She is starting to get back in the swing of things on the offensive side."

Batting third in the lineup is slugging sophomore first baseman Ashley Straile, who blasted her seventh home run of the season in Friday's win against Hillside. Junior catcher Erin Farley bats cleanup.

Straile slugged a solo round-tripper in the second inning when the Vikings broke open a scoreless game with eight runs in the frame.

Another Straile solo home run at home came against GL back on April 15 in a 3-1 Union Catholic setback.

"We have a good team defensively and a good pitcher," Ryan said. "Now we have to make sure we get a little offense going against the good teams that we're going to play."

UNION CATHOLIC VIKINGS (9-3, 6-3)

April 1 (H) Union Catholic 19, Roselle 0

April 6 (A) Union Catholic 20, Hillside 1

April 9 (A) Union Catholic 10, Summit 0

April 13 (A) Cranford 7, Union Catholic 0

April 15 (H) Gov. Livingston 3, Union Catholic 1

April 17 (H) Union Catholic 4, Brearley 0

April 20 (A) Union Catholic 16, Plainfield 0

April 22 (H) Union Catholic 10, Dayton 0

April 27 (H) Johnson 10, Union Catholic 0

April 28 (H) Union Catholic 12, Roselle Catholic 5

April 29 (A) Union Catholic 15, Roselle 0

April 30 (H) Union Catholic 16, Hillside 1

REMAINING SCHEDULE:

May 3 at Roselle Park, 4 p.m.

May 4 Summit, 4 p.m.

May 6 at Cranford, 4 p.m.

May 7 at Gov. Livingston, 4 p.m.

May 8 first round UCT game at home, TBA

May 11 Roselle Catholic, 4 p.m.

May 13 at Johnson, 4 p.m.

May 14 at New Providence, 4 p.m.

May 18 Scotch Plains, 4 p.m.

HEAD COACH: Ed Ryan

Overall record: 9-3

Colleen Dow, freshman right hander: 8-3

Toniann Beckman, senior right hander: 1-0

UCC-Mountain Division mark: 6-3

Conference wins: Roselle, Hillside, Summit,

Roselle Catholic, Roselle, Hillside.

Conference losses: Cranford, Gov. Livingston, Johnson.

UNION COUNTY CONFERENCE-MOUNTAIN DIVISION

FOR 2010 ONLY (8 TEAMS):

Cranford, Gov. Livingston, Johnson, Union Catholic,

Summit, Roselle Catholic, Hillside, Roselle.