St. Mary’s shuts down Masco

LYNN – In her career as softball coach at St. Mary’s, Colleen Newbury has never seen her Spartans get off to a start as hot as this year’s.After Thursday night’s 14-0 drilling of Masconomet, St. Mary’s stands at 8-1, meaning that there shouldn’t be a mad rush toward the end of the season to make the tournament.Still, Newbury warns that the meat of the schedule is coming up.”We haven’t had the toughest schedule so far,” she said. “But that’s going to change. We have a tough stretch of games coming up.”Thursday, St. Mary’s pounded the ball as it hasn’t been pounded in years, scoring four runs right out of the gate, two more in the fifth, and then eight in the sixth.”We started off slowly, I thought,” said Newbury. “We had a lot of bloop hits that just fell there early. But by the last inning, we were really hitting the ball.”While the bats came alive, pitcher Katelynn Fanning held the Chieftains in check. She was never really in trouble, but she picked it up considerably after the second inning. And while she struck out only five, there weren’t a lot of hard-hit balls off her (only three balls left the infield), and she gave up only two hits.She was also in the middle of the first-inning rally that proved to be the only one her team would need.She led off with a single to right, and one out later, went to third on Christina Burri’s base hit. They both came around to score on Kristen Mondello’s single to center, and Mondello followed them home on Maria Nazzaro’s single.After Nazzaro took second on a throwing error, she scored on a base hit by Ariel LaRosa.Things got quiet after that, as Masco pitcher Lissa Rescigno settled down and the game buzzed along.But St. Mary’s was back for more in the sixth, scoring two runs on a double by Burri, a triple by Erin McAndrews and a single by Mondello.The floodgates really opened in the sixth, as St. Mary’s sent 12 batters to the plate and scored eight runs.”We emptied our bench,” said Newbury. “Everybody hit.”Fanning started things off by reaching on an error (Brittany Hanscom pinch-ran for her) and Jenna Fraher followed with a double. McAndrews knocked them both in with her second triple of the game.Mondello, a hitting machine throughout the game, scored McAndrews on a single. Emily Olson kept things going with another single, and Gabbi Cohen knocked them both home with another triple.After Andrea Dandreo and Katie Collins drew walks, Hanscom singled in two more runs; another one scored on an error before, finally, Burri grounded into a fielder’s choice to stop just short of the 15-run rule.No matter. Fanning retired the side easily in the seventh.