WORTON — Kent County High School battled back from deficits of 2-0 and 5-2 to take an 8-6 lead through four innings Thursday, but there was still too much softball to be played.
The Saints pushed nine runs across the plate in the top of the fifth, and tacked on three more runs in the sixth, spoiling the home opener for the locals, 18-8.
The mercy rule-abbreviated game ended after the Trojans were retired in order in the last of the sixth.
While first-year head coach Katie Boardman acknowledged that it would have been nice to dent the win column, she did not dwell on KCHS’ 0-3 start.
“In our first two games combined, we scored only three runs. Today, we scored eight,” Boardman said in an interview immediately after the game.
“We hit the ball today, swung the bats,” she said. “And already our softball IQ has improved.”
Pitcher Julie Dickerson, shortstop Michelle Menequin, and outfielders Talicia Wright and Asia Wilson had run-scoring hits and fielded well.
Wright and Wilson hit for extra bases.
In the first inning, Wilson’s triple to center field with one away brought home Menequin [hit by pitch] and she scored one batter later on Laila Johnson’s groundout to deadlock at 2-2.
The Trojans took their first lead at 6-5 after scoring four runs in the last of the second inning. Dickerson, who started in the circle, helped her own cause with a base hit up the middle that plated Ariyana Green, who led off with a single to shallow right field and advanced with a stolen base.
Dickerson subsequently scored on Wright’s one-out stand-up double. Wright, after swiping third, scored on a passed ball during Menequin’s at-bat for a 5-5 tie.
Menequin would go on to single to shallow center, took an extra base on a fielding error, and subsequently scored the go-ahead run when Wilson shanked a single to right field.
The Saints’ leadoff batter in the top of the third reached on a two-base error, went to third on a passed ball and scored on another ball that squirted past the catcher to tie the game at 6-all with only one away.
With the go-ahead run on third base, Dickerson wiggled out of the jam with a pair of strikeouts to end the inning.
St. Michaels threatened to retake the lead in the top of the fourth after a leadoff double and a one-out single put runners on second and third. Again, Dickerson averted run damage by coaxing a pop fly to third baseman Jayla Sisco for the second out followed by a groundout to second baseman Green.
The Saints [3-1] made a pitching change in the bottom of the fourth, with Mercy Haddaway replacing Kayleigh Burkhardt in the circle.
Haddaway issued consecutive walks to Natalie Arcos, Wright and Meneqjuin — the latter working out the free pass after falling behind 0-2 in the count — to load the bases with only one away.
Arcos and Wright would subsequently score on the same passed ball with two away for an 8-6 lead.
Menequin scooted over to third on the passed ball, but was stranded there.
The Saints regained the lead for good in the top of the fifth inning when they sent out 15 batters. The key hits were Addison Andrews’ bases-loaded, two-run double to the left-center field gap and Sofia Miller’s two-run single back to the mound that ricocheted off Dickerson’s leg — before there were any outs.
Wilson led off Kent County’s fifth with a single to center field and alertly took an extra base on a fielding error, but a strikeout followed by an inning-ending double play quashed that threat.
St. Michaels pushed three more runs across the plate in the top of the sixth — at this point Menequin had replaced Dickerson in the circle — with Andrews [leadoff stand-up double] scoring on a passed ball, Miller [one-out single] scoring on Evelyn Mautz’s extra-base hit to the left field fence and Mautz sprinting home on another passed ball to extend the spread to 18-8.
Haddaway sat down Kent County in order in the home half of the inning on a groundout to second, followed by a strikeout, followed by a flyout to center field to end the game.
Katie Boardman steps up as the head varsity coach after being an assistant the last two years, and the junior varsity coach before that. She succeeds Michelle Phillips, who had been the head coach from 2018 to 2025.
Boardman is now in her fifth year as a special education teacher at Rock Hall Elementary School. Her softball résumé includes 14 years as a player, from youth league to high school varsity to travel team ball.
The Trojans’ 2026 roster consists of freshmen A’Shia Davis, Ayryonna “Nana” Roberts, Aaliyah Waits and Eniyah Wilson; sophomores Amiyah Roberts, Julie Dickerson, Alicia Kennard and Ariyana Green; juniors Talicia Wright and Aryonna Wesley; and seniors Laila Johnson, Michelle Menequin, Natalie Arcos, Asia Wilson and Jayla Sisco.
Returnees are Johnson, Menequin, Green, Wesley, Wright, Dickerson and Kennard.
To date, the starting lineup has Dickerson pitching and Arcos catching; an infield of Johnson at first, Green at second, Menequin at short and Sisco at third; and an outfield of Wesley in left, Wright in center and Asia Wilson in right.
Boardman said her expectations for the season are for the Trojans to “keep learning to play softball and enjoy the game, be competitive and continue building the program.”
NEXT UP: Kent County is home Tuesday, March 31 against Cambridge-South Dorchester. The first pitch is at 4 p.m.
The Trojans travel the following day to North Dorchester.
