She has one of the most mishyphenated names in the state.
But her opponents certainly know who she is, even if they put the hyphen in the wrong place in the scorebook.
It is Morgan-Carter Moulton who pitches for the Bangor High School softball team, not Morgan Carter-Moulton.
Moulton has been a big reason behind the Rams’ resurgence, which will see them take a seven-game winning streak into Thursday’s 4:30 Class A North quarterfinal game against visiting Lewiston.
Bangor is 11-5 and the third see while the sixth-seeded Blue Devils are 8-8.
“They very rarely get it right,” Moulton said about her name.
Moulton has had an exceptional season.
She leads the Rams in homers with four and is hitting .370. She has also driven in 10 runs.
In the circle, she is 9-5 with a 1.24 earned-run average. She has struck out 107 in 82 innings, allowing 71 hits and walking 31.
“She has done an exceptional job mixing speeds and keeping the ball lower in the strike zone,” Bangor coach Don Stanhope said. “She has worked very hard at that. That has given us an opportunity to field the ball as opposed to having it land in the outfield gaps.”
“I had a struggle in the beginning because I couldn’t throw [my off-speed pitches] at all,” Moulton said. “But my conditioning is better and working on [the off-speed pitches] more has helped as well.”
Among the regular-season highlights: Moulton and the Rams snapped defending state Class B champion Brewer’s 31-game winning streak on May 21, 6-3, in Brewer.
The Witches had beaten Bangor 9-5 on April 22.
“I was tired the first time we played them, but now I feel I can last longer than I used to,” Moulton said.
“She has done real well,” senior center fielder Madison Drake said. “She has definitely improved over her three years. She is working hard in practice, trusting in the work. In the field, we trust her. She gives us confidence when she’s out there.”
Senior right fielder Olivia Hoovler said the victory over Brewer gave the team a big shot of confidence,
“That was huge. We realized we were good and we felt we could do anything,” Hoovler said.
The win over Brewer came in the middle of a seven-game winning streak and they followed that with victories over Class B title contender Old Town (4-2), Messalonskee of Oakland (10-4) and Hampden Academy (9-5).
Those four teams have combined for a 44-20 record.
The Rams have belted a school-record 14 homers thanks to a new hitting approach.
Stanhope explained that his hitters are keeping their hands and the bat lower in the strike zone so they can maximize the power in their hips.
“It’s more of a traditional baseball swing. We’re able to elevate the ball rather than hit one-hop grounder to the shortstop,” he said.
Moulton said she changed her swing over the summer “because I had a rough time hitting my first two years. I came out this year and just tried to put the ball in play.”
She said she and her teammates have become more patient hitters.
The Rams have a balanced lineup. In addition to Moulton, the Rams have also received multi-homer seasons from freshman catcher Rae Barron and junior second baseman Rowan Andrews, who each have two homers.
Andrews is hitting .380 with 12 runs batted in. Barron is hitting .291.
Hoovler is hitting .364 with a homer and six RBIs and junior left fielder Cambria Prophete is at .341 with 10 RBIs. Sophomore first baseman Lydia Chase is hitting .406 but hasn’t hit in three games due to a case of mononucleosis.
Sophomore shortstop Jenna Smith (.333-1-10), Drake (.308, 9 RBIs) and senior third baseman Gabby Gonzales (.293-1-10) have also had productive seasons.
Smith has stolen eight bases.
The Rams have had a nice bounce-back year after going an uncharacteristic 7-9 a year ago before being eliminated from the Class A North quarterfinals by top seed Skowhegan, 10-0.
Stanhope said his team received a valuable wake-up call when it lost a 4-2 game to Messalonskee on May 6. That left the Rams’ record at 4-5.
“We gave up two runs on a couple of errors in the last inning,” he said. “That brought back our focus. It showed us how much it was going to take to get where we wanted to go.”
Stanhope said the emergence of Barron behind the plate has been valuable.
“[Barron] has grown every game. She has a [great] work ethic and a tremendously high softball IQ,” Stanhope said.
He called his Rams a “selfless team.
“If one player is struggling, the people around them pick them up. It is a refreshing group to coach. They come to work [hard] every day,” he said.
“We have put in a lot of hard work,” Hoovler said. “If you practice like champions, you play like champions.”