The marquee game of the night may have started at 8 pm, but the most thrilling game of the night started at 6 pm.

The Newtown Women’s Slo-Pitch Softball League finally held its Championship Night on Wednesday, August 18 (after being rained out the previous Friday) and crowned Chartwells (B Division) and Curtiss & Crandon (A Division) as its 2004 champions.

Chartwells – which only won a couple of games this summer – rallied back from a 6-1 deficit to overcome Newtown Exxon. And Curtiss & Crandon – after being stymied on three previous trips to the finals – defeated Beeline Woodworking, 12-3.

Rally Monkeys

After giving up four runs in the first inning and two more in the third, the end may have appeared near for Chartwells, which – with only a couple of wins – did not exactly set the Newtown Women’s Slo-Pitch Softball League on fire this summer.

But when it counted, Chartwells was ready and with the rally monkeys behind them, they scored six runs in the final two innings to slip past Newtown Exxon for the title.

A triple by Karen Alexander and doubles by Rachel Dargenio and Melissa Kopcik helped give Newtown Exxon a 4-0 lead at the end of the first inning. After Chartwells scored once in the top of the second on singles by Liz Krohn, Sherri Baggett, Mary Mangarella and Debbie Hoffman, Exxon scored twice more in the bottom of the third (a homer by Shari Burton and a double by Tricia Ricci were the big blows) to take a 6-1 lead.

Chartwells settled down after that, but still couldn’t get the bats moving.

Until the sixth inning.

A leadoff double by Rose Ann Reggiano started things off. A one-out single by Krohn, a single by Baggett, a walk to Steph Prorock, and a single by Hoffman helped Chartwells push three runs across the plate to shave the Exxon lead to 6-4.

There was some minor trouble in the bottom of the frame, but Chartwells got out of it unscathed and ready to do some more damage in the seventh.

Mary Ann Viesto singled to leadoff the frame and Debi Modzelewski followed with a one-out single to get things moving. Baggett added a single later in the inning and – with three more runs – Chartwells had inched ahead, 7-6.

Despite a leadoff single by Exxon, Chartwells tossed a pair of runners out at second and struck out the last batter of the night to earn the title.

Finally

Curtiss & Crandon had reached the championship game in three previous seasons, but always came up empty handed and disappointed.

But not this year.

The lights were the lit and the crowd was excited to watch the much-anticipated match-up between Curtiss & Crandon and Beeline Woodworking and C&C got right to work, scoring a pair of runs in the first inning to take a 2-0 lead.

The offense kept coming after that.

Diane Alicea led the way with a single, double, triple and three RBI. Diane Lawrence drove in four runs while Lisa Dolyak had a double, two singles, and two RBI. Jess Omasta singled twice and drove in a pair of runs while Heather Morgan contributed a pair of RBI and Jen Van Epps singled twice with an RBI.

Martha Decker doubled and singled twice, Lynn Baylis singled and doubled, and Patrice Fahey, Adrian Dandrea and Missy Desrochers all singled twice.

Desrochers pitched a solid ball game and got defensive support from Decker and Lawrence behind the plate, Dandrea in left field, and Morgan, Baylis and Marlene Bucci in the infield.

C&C was missing two of its veterans and one rookie because of the game rescheduling (Marge Golankiewicz, Ruth Rowe and Lisa Masella) but the rest of the team rose to the occasion to secure the championship.