Softball: Calabrase and Spinuzzi team up to keep Fair Lawn unbeaten

After a few seconds of thought, Fair Lawn’s Jen Calabrase said Monday’s 2-1 victory over No. 12 Lakeland was the best win she has ever been a part of.

“Well yeah, she had the game-winning hit, so…,” Marissa Spinuzzi said with a laugh, talking about Calabrase’s two-out, two-run go-ahead home run in the top of the seventh.

“Well there was the Ramapo win for the league last year, too…,” Calabrase responded back.

“That one never gets old,” coach Sue Benjamin said, joining the conversation.

“The thing is, we’ve always struggled against this team [Lakeland],” Spinuzzi said. “Even playing them when we were younger against like Wanaque and Ringwood, we could never beat them. So to come out on top, and coming from behind, that was amazing.”

“I’d agree with that, Jen,” Spinuzzi continued. “One of the best wins ever.”

Thanks to Calabrase’s late-game heroics, and Spinuzzi’s fourth straight impressive performance in the circle, No. 15 Fair Lawn kept its season-opening win streak alive to improve to 4-0. The fourth straight win marked Benjamin’s best start in her seven years at the helm in Fair Lawn.

“We just wanted to stay calm and have confidence in ourselves,” said Calabrase after her first career home run. “We had to keep our heads up even though we weren’t scoring runs. Staying confident and being calm really helped us.”

Calabrase — Fair Lawn’s athletic third basemen who also drilled over 100 three-pointers in her high school basketball career and has plans of playing club basketball next year at Binghamton University — didn’t have the luxury of trotting around the bases either. After watching her bullet line drive split the gap in right-center field, she admitted she was just hoping for a triple and that Sam Colca would score to tie the game. With the relay throw beating her home by a split second, Calabrase hopped over the Lakeland catcher’s glove and was called safe for the go-ahead run, sending the Fair Lawn dugout into pandemonium.

“With the momentum and adrenaline, I had to send her home,” Benjamin said. “She made me look good. She rarely hits it to the right side, and never really with that kind of power. We needed to go for it at that point and she made a smart play at the plate. If she slid, she probably would have been out, so that was a real heads up play on her part.”

“That was awesome, that whole rally was awesome,” Spinuzzi said. “I don’t even have words for it, but I knew she was gonna make it home.”

The Cutters avoided any let down on Tuesday, cruising to a 7-1 win over Union City to move to 5-0. Spinuzzi struck out 14 in the two-hitter — her fifth straight game with double-digits strikeouts and third two-hitter of the season. In addition to the three 2-hitters, she’s thrown one four-hitter and one no-hitter, too. And she’s compiled 60 strikeouts already. So yea, she’s off to a pretty good start, but it’s not like she’s coming out of no where. Spinuzzi was a second team All-Bergen selection last year after posting a 1.38 ERA with 216 strikeouts.

So what’s the biggest reason for the Cutters early-season success?

“I think because mostly everyone here is returning from last year and we have some talented sophomores with us, too,” said Calabrase, talking about Brittany Meerholz, Emily Klion, Danielle Sibilio and Sam Dypko, all of which saw playing time Monday. ”We have a four-year pitcher [Spinuzzi], we have a four-year catcher [Alexis Bush, who batted .440 last year and has over 100 career hits], and everyone is so together. We have a lot of camaraderie and we’re closer than we’ve been in the past.”

“The best thing about it is that we’ve come in and faced these teams the last couple years and lost to these teams in independent games,” Benjamin said. “I think we’re coming into this division [Big North Independece] a little bit underrated. Teams may be thinking, ‘Oh, Fair Lawn isn’t that tough’ since we’ve lost to them in the past. But this team is a special team.”

“That’s one of our team goals this year,” Benjamin continued. “To win the league outright. It’s been great to be in Ramapo’s company and share titles the last few years, but we wanted to come in this year and get it all to ourselves. Nobody knows us very well, and we don’t know them, not well at least. We just have to go out and play the best we can and take it one game at a time.”

“That last inning [Monday], those last at bats, that’s something these kids can draw on for the rest of their life. When life is tough, whenever they’re down, it’s like, ‘No, we can do this.’ I’m just really proud of them.”