Coming off a loss in last year’s Newtown High School softball program fundraiser game, the baseball team beat the girls at their own game to even the overall series at a game apiece. More importantly, members of both teams had plenty of fun and $723 was raised for the program. The game was played under the lights at Treadwell Park on a cool April 27 night with on and off light rain.

Things started out as well as possible for the girls who, after retiring the boys quickly in the top half of the first inning, got a home run from leadoff batter Julia Berry on the first pitch she saw. The game was back and forth for several innings before the baseball team got hot at the plate and pulled away for a 20-9 win.

Both teams used several pitchers and players rotated around the field, some playing out of their natural positions. The sides even switched coaches with Softball Coach Megan Goyda and her staff on the boys’ side and Ian Thoesen switching allegiances from baseball to softball. A softball field reunion of sorts with his daughter Maddie, whom he coached throughout the years.

“It’s so much fun. I have a lot of them in class. It’s just different — it’s a good change,” said Megan Goyda, who is also a physical education teacher at NHS.

Danny Leyva, Colin Gevry, and Jonathan Moseman all drove in runs as the baseball team built a 4-1 lead. Softball battled back. The baseball outfielders backed all the way to the fence when Berry led off the bottom of the third, a show of respect if not a smart plan given her game-opening power show; Berry was retired a soft liner to second base when relief pitcher Gevry continued to baffle the softball lineup. (Berry got back to her longball ways a little later.) An error in the third helped set the table for Bri Pellicone to smash a three-run homer, however, and the game was tied 4-4.

“It was different,” Gervy said of underhand softball pitching compared to the overhand throwing style used in baseball.

NHS Public Address man Jason “J” Edwards, who has learned a thing or two about underhand pitching in his many years playing vintage base ball, gave pointers to the baseball players before they competed in this game.

In the fourth, softball went up 6-4 behind some aggressive base stealing and a throwing error. The game changed in the top of the fifth. Baseball tied the score when Moseman collected two RBI on a hit down the right field line. Ryan Schmidt’s two-run single gave the hard-ballers an 8-6 edge. Lucian Place had a two-run single in a big inning that saw the boys seize a 13-6 lead.

In the bottom of the sixth Berry homered again, a two-run shot to left, pulling softball to within 13-9. This game was very much undecided until baseball established some breathing room in the top of the seventh. Schmidt hit a two-run double, Yarema Stasyshyn delivered an RBI double when he narrowly missed homering off the top of the center field fence, and Jamie Piccuillo and Moseman connected on home runs.

In the end it was a grand slam of a night for both sides as the softball team raised money and had several strong innings and individual success moments against their baseball counterparts and the baseball team got its softball-playing skills going with some big swings for the fences.

Sports Editor Andy Hutchison can be reached at andyh@thebee.com.