North Shore Tech is back for more

Powerful triumvirate leads Bulldogs as they seek another conference title

Whitney Bell (left), Nicole Tower, and Stephanie Rudis are the main reasons North Shore Tech is off to an 8-1 start. Bell hits with power, Tower instills respect among teammates, and Rudis has been pitching lights out. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

Joe Balzarini tried to warn her before she stepped into the batter's box.

North Shore Tech had a 12-6 lead over Pope John. The bases were loaded, and Whitney Bell was about to walk to the plate with a swing that turns fastballs into flying saucers.

But before she moved, Balzarini told her, "Whitney, they're going to walk you."

She looked at the bases, she looked at the score, and she looked at her coach. "No way," she said.

Then she dug in.

The first two pitches were in the dirt.

"This is ridiculous," she thought to herself.

She couldn't have hit the third pitch with a broom, it was so far off the plate.

She was one pitch away from the walk that Balzarini had predicted. But she hates to take a walk.

The fourth pitch was low. But because Bell stands about 5 feet 9 inches, umpires generally give the low balls to the pitchers. So she put a swing on it. A "what were you thinking?" home run swing.

The Pope John coach "was beside himself," Balzarini said.

Bell's swing forces opposing coaches to put outfielders back toward the fences just to keep the ball in front of them.

"They'll give Whitney the single or the double," Balzarini said. "They won't give her the triple or the home run."

Bell led the state with nine homers last year, and she has four in nine games this season.

"She's got a great stroke," Balzarini said. "I don't want to plant home runs in her mind. She's just a natural home run hitter.

North Shore Tech is off to an 8-1 start, in part because of the way Bell is pounding line drives into the gap. But it's also because of the performance of sophomore pitcher Stephanie Rudis of Haverhill, who hopes to pitch for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Nicole Tower, a four-year starter at catcher who believes that as soon as everyone on the team learns to trust one another, the Bulldogs can really do damage. Then there's the persistence of Balzarini, who started the softball program in 1984 and waited almost two years for the team to win its first game.

Since then, Balzarini has hung quite a few Commonwealth Conference banners in the gym of the school in Middleton, including one in 2004 when the Bulldogs were the state vocational champions.

North Shore won the league title three straight years from 2004 to 2006, but stumbled last season. This year the Bulldogs are a relatively young team with only four seniors, but they have underclassmen like Rudis, who pitched the fourth no-hitter in school history in a 12-0 win over Northeast.

Tower, a senior from Middleton, caught Rudis's no-no, and she said that trust on the team is getting stronger with every game.

"Everyone has to have the right attitude for it."

As a freshman, Bell was the backup first baseman because no one knew that she had been tearing the cover off the ball since she was 7 years old.

Now the senior slugger from Beverly has earned respect.

In a game against Mystic Valley, she stroked one to the outfield and started circling the bases. But when she reached home, there was some fuss about whether she had touched second.

The Mystic Valley coach told the pitcher to throw to second, and the ump called Bell out.

"The next time up," Tower recalled, "she hit the ball even harder."

At midweek, the Chieftains were 8-0 and in the hunt for their 10th win, which would qualify them for the tournament.

The Chieftains posted eye-popping offensive numbers early in the season, scoring 39 runs in their first three games. But for all the lumber, head coach Joe Marchesi said the key has been the pitching and the defense.

"Pitching is everything," Marchesi said. "Throwing strikes, getting ahead of hitters, and keeping the team in the game - and our guys have done nothing but that."

Masco has not allowed more than five runs in a game all season, and the team ERA is 0.40.

Marchesi has pocket aces in lefties Kyle Shepard (3-0) and James Riordan(2-0), and another one up his sleeve in Dan Duval (2-0). The coach is just as comfortable with any of the three on the hill.

Shepard has fanned 24 batters in 16 innings while walking four.

The pitchers have also chipped in offensively.

Shepard is a .423 hitter with 10 RBIs. Duval is batting an even .500 with 11 runs scored and 5 RBIs. But the cornerstone of Masco's offense is sitting in the two hole, where Pat Matvichuk is hitting .448 with a team-high 15 RBIs.

"That's just our kids . . . being aggressive at the plate and being aggressive on the base paths as well," Marchesi said.