Blaze lean on patience, grit and scouting in opening win

DURHAM — “Versatile” has been the word around the Carolina Blaze coming into the season. In Game 1, the identity that showed up was grit and patience, and it carried them to a 4-1 win over the Portland Cascade.

After the Cascade jumped ahead 1-0 in the third, the Blaze responded in the fourth with three runs on an RBI single from Aleshia Ocasio and a two-RBI single from Aubrey Leach. Devyn Netz added an insurance run in the fifth on a solo home run, and that completed the scoring. Solid pitching from Ocasio and Keilani Ricketts, paired with great defensive play, allowed the Blaze to pull out the win.

The Cascade sent out Kelly Maxwell, and after 3.2 innings of success, the Blaze burst open with that three-run fourth inning. Maxwell had to work for those innings, and the Blaze showed a pretty patient approach that worked four walks.

Maxwell used a great amount of the rise ball, and while she had some success with it, it missed a great deal as well. After the game, I asked both Leach and Ocasio what they saw from Maxwell and what the preparation for her was like. They credited their coaches and good scouting.

“I’d say just the amount of effort our coaching staff has put into scouting and what we’ve done in the last 2 days being here,” Leach said. “I think we were all fully confident going in with our game plan, and it paid off. And so just the preparation that they’ve put in makes us feel more confident stepping in the box.”

Ocasio piggybacked off Leach’s response and went further to talk about preparation and how to simulate what they may see. That is not always an easy thing to do, but it was effective in this matchup.

“We have our own iPads, watch the film on our own, and then we come in, and we see some more on the TV,” Ocasio said. “Like, she said, they do a really good job of recreating their spin on the hack machines. So we really just feel like we’ve already seen her 10 million times. So it feels confident and comfortable in the box.”

The grit showed up with two outs, where the Blaze finished the day batting .333 and drove in three of their runs.

Then, on the defensive side, the Blaze kept the Cascade to a very quiet day at the plate. The biggest defensive moment came with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the fourth. Alyssa Brito snagged a Kelly Torres lineout and tagged Kennedy Powell at second for an unassisted double play. That robbed Portland of a chance to break the game open.

Ocasio and Ricketts kept the ball out of harm’s way, and out of 27 batters faced, 10 were retired via groundout with five strikeouts. Just four flyouts were recorded the whole game. It was a solid plan executed.

“So to see everything come to fruition today and come out and get the first win and just stay the course, even though we might not have put the first run up on the board, I think speaks volumes to what you’re going to see the rest of the season,” Ocasio said.