For the second straight year, the St. Mary’s High School girl’s softball team journeyed to New York City in search of a Catholic state championship. For the second straight year, they travel back to Lancaster empty-handed.

The girls didn’t bring their “A” game with them, losing in the semifinal on Tuesday to Archbishop Molloy High School, 7-2. The Lancers hurt themselves throughout with a lack of hitting and untimely errors.

St. Mary’s committed three errors in the game, two of them in the second inning which allowed two unearned runs to score on pitcher Lauren Wesolowski; giving Malloy an early lead they never relinquished.

St. Mary’s coach Dave Helak couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason for the errors.

“I just don’t think that we were ready to play,” said Helak. “We suffered some mental lapses and were out of sorts. I don’t know if we thought we had a privilege to win, or if we thought it was a given that we would win. But that wasn’t us out there.”

Malloy broke the game wide open in the 6th inning after a 47 minute lightning delay. With the bases loaded, Junior Jacklyn Perillo hit a bases clearing three RBI double, turning a four run game into an insurmountable 7-0 deficit for the Lancers.

Perillo went 3-3 in the game with five runs batted in.

Wesolowski got the loss. In six innings, she gave up seven runs, five earned, on 11 hits. She was pitching in unfamiliar territory with a mound 43 feet away from home plate; regulation in New York City leagues rather than the 40 feet in Buffalo.

“Lauren simply ran out of gas because of the three feet. It was different for her,” said Helak.”

While St. Mary’s was uncharacteristically committing errors on defense, the bats were silent of offense. The team was credited with only three hits in the first six innings.

The Lancers had a chance in the third inning to take a lead when they had Malloy winning pitcher Victoria Goldbach in a bases loaded jam. However Goldbach got senior Stephanie Simmeth to ground out to end the threat.

From there, Goldbach cruised, only giving up one more hit over the next three innings.

The Malloy defense was solid behind Goldbach. The Lancers had difficulty finding holes in it.

“Whenever we would make contact, we would find every glove out there,” said Helak.. “I knew the three feet extra would kill us if we weren’t hitting.”

The Lancers certainly weren’t hitting, managing only five for the game.

They were finally able to muster a little offense in the seventh inning. Wesolowski helped her own cause with a two out, two RBI hit, scoring sophomores Rachelle Kelchin and Jenna West. But it was too little, too late for the Lancers.

In the consolation game, the Lancers faced St. John the Baptist and fared no better.

After pitching a complete game hours before, Wesolowski had little left in the tank, giving up seven more runs on 11 hits in four innings.

The Lancer bats were again silent. They managed only two hits in four innings. The game was called after the fourth when it started to storm again. The official final result was a 7-0 loss.

The Lancers finish the season with an overall record of 24-4. It was an improvement from the 20-6 campaign they put together a year ago in which they won third place in the state tournament that year.

State championship disappointment aside, Helak reflects on this year as a success.

“Last year the girls saw the Monsignor Martin championship banner with the year 1990 on it and they wanted to add a 2009 to it,” Helak said.  “And they did it. This year they had the same goal. They wanted to add a 2010 to it. They did.”

Still, Helak knows what the team lost out on in New York.

“It’s disappointing to come all this way and play that kind of game,” he said, referring to the errors and lack of timely hitting.”

The team will lose two seniors from this year’s team. First baseman Stephanie Simmith and second baseman Kelsey Rademacher finish their careers at St. Mary’s with two league championships.

Simmith will continue her career at Mansfield (PA) University next year.

Despite losing the two seniors, Helak is looking forward to next year.

“We have some freshmen coming in who we’re looking to fight for spots with our program,” he said. “We are trying to take our program to a place it has never been before. And we think that we are on our way.”