Stonington — Norwich Free Academy had to overcome a few forms of adversity to finish the week with a victory.

On Saturday, that adversity manifested itself as Stonington center fielder Mallory Kane.

The 10th-ranked NFA softball team topped Stonington 4-3 in nine innings, but not before Kane made four spectacular catches in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings to take away the Wildcats' momentum.

"Kane alone probably prevented three runs, conservatively," NFA coach Bryan Burdick said. "It's been one of those kind of exciting weeks for us all the way around, good and bad. ... That's a very solid team (in Stonington). They have the table-setters 1-2 and the big bats 3-4-5. They present challenges. You can't take a pitch off."

NFA (8-1) was playing for the first time since an 8-3 loss to No. 2 Fitch on Monday and the Wildcats also had to contend with a knee injury to freshman catcher Shea Gendron in the fifth inning against Stonington.

Stonington (8-3) had the potential winning run in scoring position in the sixth and eighth innings and got the tying run to second base in the ninth, too, to no avail.

NFA, which had four unearned runs against Stonington freshman pitcher Trinity Lennon, scored the game-winner in the top of the ninth. Emily Arico reached on a fielder's choice and stole second base for the Wildcats, then took third on a ground out by Beth Fleming. With two outs, Brittany Clark's hard grounder to shortstop took a bad hop in front of Jess Connor, with Connor unable to make a play as the runner raced home.

Stonington responded with infield singles by Brooke Arruda and Rhianna Maynard in the bottom of the ninth. But NFA sophomore pitcher Beth Fleming, on in relief for Megan Weir, got Emma Miller to line to third and Christine McNeil flied out to Weir in center field for the final out.

"It's a tough one," said Stonington coach Ann-Marie Houle, whose team is in the thick of the Eastern Connecticut Conference Medium Division race along with Waterford and Griswold (one division loss each). "We couldn't get the extra hit, but I thought the pieces were there.

"Like (Kane) said at the end, 'You're the home team and it's a tie, you've got to get the run across.' You've got to want to win instead of being afraid to lose. They've got to be gamers. We have Waterford, Plainfield and Griswold next week. You need to attack instead of us being attacked."

Stonington scored one run in the first on an RBI single by Maynard before NFA tied the game 1-1 in the third on an RBI single by Clark.

NFA followed with two more runs in the fifth on another run-scoring hit by Clark and an RBI double to the gap by Weir, making it 3-1.

Kane led off the bottom of the inning with a double down the left field line for Stonington, leading to a two-run rally that tied the score at 3. Abby Blanchard bunted and was safe at first on the play, with just enough of a bobble by NFA to allow the speedy Kane to score. Blanchard stole second and Maynard hit a sharp ground that was also misplayed, scoring Blanchard. NFA's Gendron was injured on the play at the plate.

Kane then began reeling in NFA's potential hits. In the seventh, she robbed the Wildcats twice in a row, one sprinting in and to the right to take a hit from Clark and one a sliding catch after a dead run from center field to right, robbing Weir.

Stonington had a pair of two-out singles in the eighth, but left the runners stranded, leaaving 13 runners on base in all.

"We're excited to play the elite teams that are going to be close games," said Fleming, who pitched the final four innings for the victory. "It was nervewracking, but it was exciting. We were kind of put down after that loss to Fitch."

NFA next plays ECC Large Division opponent East Lyme (7-2) in the first of the teams' two meetings this season on Monday in Norwich. 

"This gives us some hope," Burdick said with a laugh. "And by that I mean it would be tough to drop two in a row and then have East Lyme coming in. This kind of tells us where we are. I said at one point, 'Go out and do your job.' And they all did."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday