Bay View softball player Kim Pelland this week, after breaking her ankle during practice three weeks ago.

The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

EAST PROVIDENCE –– Kim Pelland couldn’t have gotten her final high school softball season off to a better start.

The two-time All-State catcher from Bay View was on a tear at the plate last month. Through the first four league games, she was batting .500 and had already collected two doubles, two triples, a grand slam, nine RBI and nine runs scored.

“This was through four games,” said Bengals coach Dennis Kennedy. “If you project that over 16 games, that’s an unbelievable season.”

Unfortunately for Pelland, however, that fourth league game was where her season has stopped, her return to the lineup now uncertain after breaking her left ankle in practice about three weeks ago.

“It’s been a long year,” Pelland said with a sigh as she leaned on her crutches after Bay View’s win over Toll Gate last Tuesday.

Indeed it has. For this wasn’t the first injury she has had to deal with in her senior year.

Pelland’s troubles began when she tore the meniscus in her right knee last summer while playing softball.

She tried to avoid having surgery and managed to get through the fall tennis season, helping Bay View to a runner-up finish in the Division I Championship. But she soon realized that her knee wouldn’t hold up and had the meniscus repaired at the start of the basketball season.

Pelland was out for five weeks, but returned to the lineup, helping that Bengals team make a return trip to the Division I finals.

Then it was on to the softball season.

Things were rolling right along for Pelland. That is, until she suffered injury number two. It happened during a sliding drill at practice, she says.

“I slid into the base and my ankle got caught in the dirt. The ground was kind of hard,” Pelland recalled. “And I heard a crack or something.”

The hard cast was removed from her ankle last Tuesday and she immediately began physical therapy. Pelland will go for another x-ray this week. It’s too soon to tell, though, whether she will be able to finish out the season.

“It’s more a week-to-week thing to see how it goes,” she said. “The bone has to heal before I can play.

“It’s very frustrating,” continued Pelland, who won a partial scholarship to play softball at Providence College next fall. “I love to be on the field and it’s hard sometimes, but I’m just trying to do what I can off the field right now. I’m trying to be positive.”

Since the injury, Pelland has channeled her energy into working with junior Bianca Falcone, who has assumed the catching responsibilities.

“She’s doing a great job,” Pelland said. “She’s really stepped up and she’s helping us out in a lot of ways. I’m just trying to help her learn calling the game and setting up her pitches, just how to communicate with the pitcher.”

Already well aware of Pelland’s ability to lead when she is on the field, Kennedy has been impressed with the way the co-captain has handled her adversity this season and found different ways to contribute to the team’s success, despite being sidelined.

“I have to give her a lot of credit because she has not missed a game or a practice since it happened,” Kennedy said. “She’s been doing an awful lot of work with Bianca. She’s calling the pitches now. She’s the absolute epitome of what it means to be a leader. She really is.”

cthorn@projo.com