When looking at a way to find out how a team is performing, the best place to go is your team's divisional standings. But before you take a peak, deep down your team feels they could do better as they have loss a game or two that they should have won. So far this season, no team has really established themselves as the leaders of the Olympic Conference National Division. Two of those teams met on the softball field at Bishop Eustace Prep. The Lady Eagles from Paul VI would use a big first inning and held on to defeat the Crusaders by a 5-1 margin.

Just one year ago, Paul VI started out their season with a win but they would lose 7 of their next 8 games. During that season, Camden Catholic and Bishop Eustace were the teams on top of the division with the Eagles always looking up in the standings. With the struggles of teams finding a dry field to play on this season, the Eagles have won the first 3 games they were able to play as they are the only undefeated team in their division.

Paul VI went to work early during the top half of the first inning. Taking advantage of a few mistakes and some timely hits, the Eagles scored five times. Those runs were enough for starting pitcher Stefanie Ricciardi to work with as she was able to minimize the Crusaders’ scoring chances. Alex Rocco would take the loss in this game, but after that first inning her team’s performance would keep Paul VI off the scoreboard for the rest of the game.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7		F
Paul VI	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	-	5
Bishop Eustace	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	-	1

Photos by Frank Crescenti