ORONO, Maine — Whenever a team has a successful season, there is usually a turning point or two.
University of Maine first-year softball coach Mike Coutts said for his newly crowned America East champion Black Bears, it was the April series against defending titlist Binghamton that defined his team.
“They had punched us in the mouth in the first game of the series 7-3 and I told the girls after the game that if you were going to be any kind of a team, you’ve got to punch them back,” said Coutts, whose Black Bears won the second game of the doubleheader 3-0 before taking the series with a 2-1 triumph the next day.
Maine has gone 13-4 since that loss and will now face No. 16 Georgia in the Athens NCAA Regional Tournament at 3:30 p.m. Friday.
It will be Maine’s third NCAA Tournament berth, but first since 2004.
“They responded. They stood their ground, which is something they hadn’t done in past years,” said Coutts, who had been the assistant for his wife, Lynn, the previous three years.
“[The Binghamton series] was a good reality check. We learned we can fight back, we can be resilient and overcome adversity,” said catcher Janelle Bouchard of Kennebunk, the America East Player of the Year and Maine’s only senior.
Junior lefty Erin Bogdanovich, the America East Pitcher of the Year and the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, felt a 6-2 regular-season win at Stony Brook after a 4-0 loss in the first game was pivotal for the Bears.
“We [decided we] weren’t going to lose to them again and once we beat them, we had the mindset we could beat anyone,” said Bogdanovich.
Junior shortstop Felicia Lennon said she felt the team could be special “all year long.”
“The difference has been our chemistry,” she said. “This is a real special group of girls. We really want to be out there together and play for each other, which has been a huge part of our success.”
“I knew the minute I walked in [during fall softball] that there was something special about this team,” said freshman third baseman-outfielder Alyssa Derrick, the league’s Rookie of the Year. “It was how we meshed, how we worked together, how we talked and bonded.”
With eight wins in their last nine games, a .320 batting average, a respectable 52 errors in 47 games and pitchers Bogdanovich (10-4, 2.87 earned run average) and sophomore Molly Flowers (11-10, 2.58), the Black Bears are expecting to be competitive in a double-elimination regional that also includes 29-24 Oklahoma State and 26-26 Northwestern University from Illinois.
Georgia is the lowest-seeded host in the 64-team tourney.
“We want to prove ourselves and we believe we can definitely do that,” Lennon said.
“We’re in a really good bracket. There’s going to be some good competition and really good games. We’re going to have fun and see what happens,” said junior catcher-outfielder Rachel Harvey.