Winning obviously begets winning. And if you need any further proof of that, take a look at the St. Mary’s girls sports program this school year.The Lady Spartans have done an awful lot of winning. The boys have, too ? but the girls have been especially proficient this year at coming out ahead in the majority of their games.Beginning in the fall, the girls soccer team was 11-6-3 and advanced to the Division 3 North quarterfinals before falling to Lynnfield.Moving on to the winter, the girls basketball squad entered the state tournament with a 16-6 record and moved all the way to the regional semifinal before a Pentucket squad with one of the best players in the state prevailed ? but by only 11 points.Need we say any more about the girls hockey team? All those Spartans did was go 26-0 and win their second straight state championship.Moving along to the spring, the Spartan girls lacrosse squad – with several players from that hockey team featured – went 15-3 in the regular season, and even though St. Mary’s bowed out in the first round, you’d still have to call it a successful season as the sport is still relatively new to the school.This leaves us with the only team still standing among local high school girls sports teams ? the St. Mary’s softball team. The Spartans were 12-8 during the regular season ? a tough season by the Spartans’ standards. They came into the season with high expectations, having won the Division 3 North title a year ago, and for a while they looked about as good as advertised.But they took a little dip in the second half, and when the pairings came out in May, they had to climb their way out of a tough bracket (back-to-back games against Shawsheen and Ipswich ? both excellent teams) to get to the sectional final once again.When it comes to the tournament, the Spartans these days have several important things going for them. First, they play in what is essentially a Division 2 league ? the Catholic Central League/Large. Second, they schedule tough nonleague opponents (two of the teams they face in the Holland Tournament are actually Division 1). And third, they have the benefit of four of those hockey players to lend some perspective and lead the way when it comes to handling immense pressure.Of the four, junior catcher Erin McAndrews is perhaps the key player (though all four have seen action this spring). A vital cog in the girls’ back-to-back hockey titles, McAndrews is perhaps more important to the softball team. She has clearly stepped up to the challenge of leading these girls into uncharted territory.Coach Colleen Newbury has been at this since 2001, and this is her third sectional title. But if the Spartans win tonight (5, at Taunton High) against Cohasset, she and the Spartans will be in their first-ever state title game together (Newbury, while with Bishop Fenwick, played in – and won – all four state championship games in which she played).McAndrews freely admits that being on a team where everyone expects you not only to succeed, but to stand out, has its advantages when it comes to providing leadership to the softball team.”(The experience) has helped me when it comes to these kinds of games, where there is a lot of pressure,” she says.For one thing, she has a better sense of what needs to be done at any given moment. Against Shawsheen, she came up in the sixth inning with her team trailing, 2-1, and with a runner on first.”All I was trying to do,” she said, “was execute the hit-and-run. But I swung and the ball just took off.”It took off, all right ? all the way over the fence in right field. And that proved to be the winning margin in a pivotal game.Three days later, against Ipswich, McAndrews was back, knocking in the tying run in the quarterfinal win over the Tigers (in the same game, Angela Dandreo, another hockey player, hit a pinch inside-the-park homer to ice the victory). And, of course, in the D3 title game Sunday, it was McAndrews who started the ball rolling, driving in the first