Berkshire Force Drops Regional Final, Grabs World Series Bid

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires.com Sports
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. – The Berkshire Force 12-and-under travel softball team Sunday rallied for five runs in the top of the sixth inning but could not eclipse the Stamford, Conn., Stars in a 14-8 game to decide the championship of the Babe Ruth New England Regional.
 
Stamford took advantage of eight Force errors and pulled away late with five runs in the fourth inning and two more in the fifth to secure the regional title.
 
Both teams qualified for the July’s Babe Ruth World Series, though.
 
The Stars previously qualified for the national tournament with a tourney win in Londonderry, N.H., in May, leaving one open bid for this weekend’s tournament at the Doyle Complex.
 
The Force, which won on Saturday afternoon over Windham, N.H., to survive the loser’s bracket and get a rematch with the Stars, took the bid to go to Alabama for the July 23-Aug. 1 World Series as the weekend’s runner-up.
 
Early on, it looked like the home team would take care of business against Stamford and force an “if necessary” game to decide the regional championship against the winners’ bracket winner.
 
The Force scored three runs on just one hit in the top of the first.
 
Addison Farkas and Cassidy Flynn each drew a walk ahead of Gianna Moses’ one-out single to plate Farkas. Flynn and Moses then came home when Lexi Witherell grounded to the left side for an RBI and an Stamord error let Moses come home from second on the play.
 
Stamford answered back right away with three in the bottom of the first, taking advantage of three Force errors in the inning.
 
“I’m not gonna make excuses, but playing three games yesterday and [Stamford] only played one, it’s tough on our girls,” Force coach Mike Lodowski said. “I know it’s softball. It’s not football. But it still beats them up.”
 
Because Stamford went 2-0 in pool play on Friday, it needed to win just once on Saturday afternoon to reach Sunday’s final round. Berkshire ended up playing three times on Saturday and once on Sunday – a total of four games in about 26 hours.
 
“Our first games [of the day] are always tough,” Lodowski said. “Our first innings are always tough. These guys jump on it, and we’ve always had trouble waking up for some reason. Especially home tournaments, where we can’t put our girls to bed early – when we go away, we put ‘em to bed early. When we’re home, I can’t regulate what time they go to bed or if they’re in their pool at night.”
 
Stamford took the lead in the bottom of the third with four runs – two unearned – in an inning that featured a two-run double by Madison McGrath (2-for-3, four RBIs).
 
Force pitchers Cassidy Flynn and Olivia Archambault split time in the circle, combining to allow eight earned runs between them.
 
Flynn got the start and moved to short when Lodowski made the change to Archambault between the third and fourth innings.
 
“Liv, it came up at the last minute that her wrist was hurting her,” he said. “We still wanted to pitch her, though. We wanted to see a different change. She’s got the mixed bags of curve balls and a little bit of drops. I don’t know if we were getting the calls on drops, but she was throwing them.”
 
Stamford used two hits, three walks and a hit batter to open up a 12-3 lead before adding a pair in the fifth to put the Force in a 14-3 hole.
 
Down to its last at-bat with a regional title on the line, Berkshire put together its best offensive inning in three tries against the Stars this weekend.
 
Flynn got things started by reaching on an error, and Moses and Witherell followed with singles to make it 14-4 and put runners at the corners.
 
After Stamford’s Kate Dettmer got a strikeout, Tori Blanchard blasted a double to center field to score Moses and Whitherell, get the deficit down to eight runs and fire up the Force and its crowd.
 
Daisy Caron then singled and moved up on a throw to third to put two runners in scoring position with one out.
 
Dettmer got a strikeout looking. But Kaylana Altman reached on a two-base outfield error that allowed both Blanchard and Caron to come home to make it 14-8.
 
Berkshire’s comeback hopes then were dashed when Dettmer got out of the inning and the game with a groundball out to secure the championship.
 
Lodowski said the regional tournament, which also featured play in 8U and 10U brackets, will pay dividends for his players, in terms of the competition they saw, and for the sport in Berkshire County in general.
 
“We’d love to see more girls playing softball,” he said after the Force’s Friday tournament opener. “I have a daughter who plays in college, and she came through the Force program. We want to see girls develop and play and excel in the sport. It’s a great sport. It’s the No. 4 most-watched sport on television when they play the College World Series.
 
“We want more girls to get into softball. We have a really big rec ball league. We need more girls to come out and play. I think now that the COVID thing is over, our 10U organization has got a ton of teams, and they’re starting to filter up. Whereas our 12s, 14s and 16s are still a little bit thin. Maybe that’s the COVID effect. … We’re going to be really good again like we were maybe six, seven years ago.”
 
In the near term, this year’s edition of the Berkshire Force 12U faces the challenge of raising funds to offset the cost to families of sending the team to Florence, Ala., site of the World Series. Team manager Jessica Faille Sunday said that anyone interested in helping to sponsor the trip can contact the club at berkshireforce12U@yahoo.com.
If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Companion Corner: Glo at the Berkshire Humane Society

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — There's a sweet and playful dog at the Berkshire Humane Society waiting for her new family.

iBerkshire's Companion Corner is a weekly series spotlighting an animal in our local shelters that is ready to find a home.

"Glo is about a one-year-old, sweet female pitty mix who has nothing but love to give," said kennel supervisor Stacey Broderick.

Glo has been at the shelter for about three weeks after unfortunately being kicked out of her previous home.

"She came here because her previous home, she was being crated an awful lot, and unfortunately, was creating a little bit of a raucous when she was left by herself," said Broderick. "So she was just being a little barky, a little loud. Neighbors obviously shared walls in an apartment setting we're complaining to the landlord, and the landlord said, unfortunately, that she had to go."

But since coming to the shelter she has been learning a lot.

"She's been nothing but a sweet little girl ever since she is working on crate training, she has been very good for us. We're practicing it with her. She is also working on her house training. In addition to it, it seems that we had a little bit of a reverse situation going on, where she likes to go potties inside, but we are working very hard, and she is learning so quickly," she said. "So even after just a couple weeks with us, she's been really getting the point to go outside and do all of her potties out there."

She would do best in the home as the only dog and possibly without cats. She would also do best with older children who can understand her needs as she needs less activity than other dogs.

"The perfect home would, because of the necessity for her to have a lower activity level, probably without other dogs, just because she can get a little bit rambunctious when she gets excited around them," Broderick said. "So she could certainly have doggie play dates, but her perfect home would be no dogs. Unfortunately, we do have a bit of a prey drive with kitty cats, so probably leaning away from the cats, unless they're incredibly dog savvy ...

"Probably looking toward a home without super young kids, just so they're not jumping, you know, or leaning, or anything along those lines, and understanding that sometimes she's going to just need a break."

Because of a medical condition she wouldn't be able to go on long hikes or do anything extraneous but she is still very active and playful.

"She is absolutely lovely. She's sweet, she's young, she's playful. She wants to be with her people all the time. She loves toys. She does like going out for walks. We do have a couple of medical things that we can certainly give more information to adopters, too," she said. "We have some hip dysplasia that we're looking at, so probably moderate activity level would be best for her.

"She shouldn't necessarily be going on super long hikes, even though she would love to, but she is young and full of life and full of energy, and wants nothing more than to be with her people."

Since Glo has hip dysplasia she will need to maintain a healthy weight to not add stress to her joints and can also benefit from hydrotherapy.

"It's something that somebody will have to have a good relationship with a veterinarian physical therapists, and then if they were interested in doing a hydrotherapy type situation, it can only help her," Broderick said. "We want to keep those muscles built up in the hind end so that her hips are not taking the brunt of the bone on bone action while she is kind of living out her very best life."

Glo hasn't shown any symptoms or difficulties since being at the shelter, but it is a condition that her owners need to understand and it increases her chances of arthritis as she gets older.

Broderick said Fritters Critters in Lee specializes in pet hydrotherapy.

"They basically work on an underwater treadmill. So that's walking under the water so that she has a little bit of resistance and the water is warm, so that it's optimum for therapeutic benefits," she said. "They do have a pool there, too, where she would be able to do some swimming, and it really gives her the ability to exercise and really extend those joints and build up those muscles without the added pressure of gravity and impact as she's walking or playing or running.

"So the hydrotherapy is a great option for dogs, even if you just want to do it for fun. She could really benefit healthwise, from it, too."

She will also have to stay on her joint mobility food to help her.

But Glo is a very happy and playful dog and loves everyone she sees and is hoping to find someone who will love her just as much to take her home.

"I can't say enough good about her. I know that the hip dysplasia sounds like a scary piece of it, as well as the house training," Broderick said. "But honestly, there was not a friendlier, sweeter, more outgoing, social, wants to be best friends with you, kind of dog. She was in the front lobby this past Saturday, and she met like 10 people at the same time, and just made rounds and loved every single person as they came in."

You can visit Glo at the Berkshire Humane Society and read more about her on the website.

The Berkshire Humane Society is open Tuesday through Sunday. The adoption center is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

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