She lacks the imposing size and intimidating demeanor of many of her elite counterparts. In fact, with her slim build and easygoing manner, when Norwood High’s Kristen Dolan takes the circle she looks like your typical teenager about to have a little fun with her friends.
But that’s where the fun ends, at least for anyone who has had to step in against her.
After establishing herself as the area’s best hurler over the last three years, Dolan treated her final season on Nichols Street like its was two strikes and a runner on third — she dialed it up a notch and blew the competition away.
The result was not only a truly dominant campaign that put the 2008 Daily News Transcript Softball Player of the Year among the ranks of the state’s top guns, but sparked a renaissance in the Mustang program that won 17 games and advanced farther than any Norwood team in the last couple decades.
“We definitely knew it was going to be a good year,” said Dolan. “We all put in so much hard work and practiced a lot. It was exciting get that far in the tournament, especially senior year.”
The journey started in Norwood Little League Softball with the Dolphins at age 10. She was always the pitcher, although she played some shortstop and first base before abandoning the field (and her bat) when she got to high school. As a youngster, she drew the attention of the last great Mustang pitcher, former Wheaton star Jackie Demling, who worked with her early on and still provides the occasional tip.
Dolan arrived on the varsity as part of a promising tandem of freshman pitchers with fellow senior captain Paige Hackett and they were given the ball right away. After initially splitting time early in their careers, Dolan gradually established herself as the staff ace over the next three years, although former Transcript All-Star Hackett proved to not only be the perfect compliment to Dolan in their final year with seven wins as well as a supportive teammate.
While Dolan had put up some impressive results in her first three seasons, the swansong numbers are dizzying. When you strolled up to the batters box this spring against Dolan, odds were you would be sitting right back down quickly. The right-hander struck out more than two batters per inning throughout the season, fanning 239 batters in 117 frames. And she did it by going right after hitters — just 11 drew free passes from Dolan.
Dolan does it with an array of weapons at her disposal. While she calls her screwball her best pitch, she has a rise, a drop and a curve to go with it while mixing in an occasional changeup. Varying speeds though was rarely necessary this spring with the vicious movement on her pitches. Of her 239 punchouts, 191 came swinging.
“She has more movement on her ball than any high school pitcher I’ve ever seen,” said Norwood coach Kathy Smelstor. “She can start it on the outside corner and move it right in. At the (Bay State Conference) All-Star game, the Walpole catcher (Shawna Richardson) wanted to catch her and she said she had never seen a ball move like that.”
While many Massachusetts pitchers had adapt to the rubber being moved back from 40 feet to the college standard of 43 feet this year, it was hitters that had to do the adjusting against Dolan. The extra distance turned out to be boon as her rise rose more, her drop dropped more, her curve curved more, and her screwball, well, screwed more.
“I think it definitely helped, it let the pitches have a couple extra feet of break,” said Dolan of the new distance. “I’ve never really been overpowering, so the 43 feet didn’t really affect my speed.”
When you can’t make contact, it’s that much tougher to score — a difficult proposition for opponents this year. Including tournament play, just 14 runners crossed the plate with Dolan in the circle this spring, with only eight of the runs earned. That translated into a sparkling 0.48 ERA for the season.
But as spectacular as Dolan was all year, one player cannot do it alone, a concept the Mustangs learned quickly in the opening game. Dolan struck out 20 batters without a walk against Wellesley and took a one-hitter into the ninth inning, but a triple and infield single gave the Raiders a 1-0 extra-inning win as the Mustangs were no-hit.
It was not be the last of the hard-luck losses for Dolan, who finished with a 10-5 record. A dropped fly ball was the difference in an eight-inning 2-1 loss to fellow star hurler Liz DiMascio and Braintree and a throwing error in a seventh plated the winning run in a 2-1 loss to Natick.
The only time Dolan was truly hit hard came in a 5-4 loss to Milton in which she surrendered half of her earned runs on the season. Amazingly, all five of Dolan’s losses on the season came by one run.
Dolan rebounded from each bout with adversity with flair. Following, the disappointing Braintree loss, Dolan submitted perhaps the most spectacular performance of her career against rival Dedham, flirting with perfection as she set down 21 of 22 Marauder batters, 19 by strikeout, in a no-hitter. A fifth-inning error on a bunt was the only blemish in the scorebook in a 12-0 win.
The next time out she got the chance to avenge her prior disappointment against Wellesley, this time refusing to blink when the game went into extra-innings scoreless again. Dolan tossed zeroes for 17 straight frames, fanning 21 Raiders, before her teammates finally delivered her a 5-0 win.
Part of her success comes from that ability to shrug off sticky situations and stay relaxed in the circle.
“I try not to overthink things and put pressure on myself, when I’m calm is when I pitch my best,” said Dolan. “I just take a walk around the mound take sometime and think about making every pitch my best pitch.”
“I don’t think I ever saw her really frazzled, maybe once,” said Smelstor. “She’s not going to die of a heart attack out there, that’s for sure.”
The loss to Milton, which had dropped the Mustangs to 8-5 on the season, sparked a seven-game Norwood winning streak to close the season. With a young team behind her gaining experience with every game, the holes began to close up defensively and the bats began to heat up offensively.
After trying to carry the squad on her shoulders for the first half of the season, a balance was struck.
“I never really felt any pressure,” said Dolan. “I knew that we had great team chemistry, and I knew that my teammates would help me out.”
It was capped, fittingly, with a 4-2 win over Walpole in the regular season finale that denied the rival Rebels a share of the BSC Herget Division title and gave the Mustangs seniors their first sweep of Walpole.
The signature moment came when Dolan whiffed Walpole’s Stephanie Frye for the second out of the seventh inning. It also happened to be her 13th strikeout of the game, giving her exactly 200 on the season, the first Norwood pitcher to accomplish the milestone. A rare visit to the circle by Smelstor to recognize the feat, caused an even rarer sight for Norwood foes — a flustered Dolan on the mound as she was blissfully unaware.
“I didn’t ever know, the last batter was coming up and I saw her coming out and I was just confused,” said Dolan. “But I was really exciting to be able to do that.”
Her regular season accomplishments earned her the nod as Herget Division MVP.
“I try to protect my pitchers, I don’t really showcase them and that’s my own fault but she definitely earned the respect of the rest of the league,” said Smelstor. “Plus she’s a nice kid. She’s not an I beat you, in your face kid. She wins gracefully and she loses with dignity.”
As brilliant as Dolan was through the first 20 games, she raised her game a level in the postseason. Norwood had missed the tournament in Dolan’s first year and suffered heartbreaking preliminary round losses in the last two. And Dolan made sure that was not the way she was going out.
With Norwood entering the Division 1 South field as the No. 9 seed, Dolan threw a three-hit, 14-strikeout gem to get the preliminary round monkey off the Mustangs back with a 6- 1 win over Barnstable, then willed Norwood into the quarterfinals with a two-hit, 11strikeout masterpiece against New Bedford, which the Mustangs somehow won despite being no-hit.
That set up a second showdown with DiMascio and Braintree in the quarterfinals and it didn’t disappoint. After going toe-to-toe for eight frames in the first meeting, the two tossed goose eggs at each into the ninth when the Wamps, who went on the win the South crown, scratched across a run on a hit batter, a steal and a soft opposite-field single for the 1-0 win.
But there will be plenty more opportunities for Dolan, who will take her talents to Springfield and American International College this fall.
“We were lucky to have her and we are going to miss her,” said Smelstor. “It’s been four years, sometimes its seems like it was a lot longer. I wish her the best of luck.”
If history is any indication, it will be Northeast-10 batters that will need the luck.
