English softball defeats Swampscott

LYNN – With its season reaching the halfway mark on Thursday at Keaney Park, the Lynn English softball team took the field against Swampscott knowing the run for a state tournament berth was now beginning.Overcoming an early 1-0 deficit, the Bulldogs rattled off five unanswered runs and then had to hang on as Swampscott staged a late seventh-inning rally that fell short in a 5-3 English win.Click here for a photo gallery.”We want to get to 10 wins and anything after that would be a bonus,” English coach Alisa Fila said. “And this win is huge. It’s all about the state tournament now.”Facing a team that had already knocked off Peabody and Salem earlier in the week, the Bulldogs (4-6) played a near flawless game while the Big Blue (6-4) were sloppy at times. Four errors behind pitcher Kirstin Vinal resulted in two unearned runs and fed the Bulldogs’ momentum.”I kind of thought this might happen,” Swampscott coach Frank Kowalski said. “I’ve been a coach long enough with a lot of teams to know about the letdown that can happen after a big game. We’re better than that on defense, and that hurt us (Thursday).”The Big Blue got off to a quick start against English starter Tiffany Drown in the first. Alex Wilson led off the game with a single, stole second and later came around to score on Courtney Russo’s groundout to short.It stayed 1-0 into the second when the Bulldogs got even as Cara Crowley tripled to left and scored on Taylor Newhall’s groundout to second. An inning later, English pushed in front for good thanks to a little help from the Swampscott defense.Sam Earp opened the inning with a triple down the line in right. Vinal got the next two batters quickly before a throwing error on a Crowley grounder to short scored Earp and put the English catcher on second base.Newhall then grounded to third, but another error allowed Crowley to race around and staked the Bulldogs to a 3-1 lead after three.Swampscott threatened in a massive way in the top of the fourth against Drown. Russo singled, Cortney Fletcher walked and Moe Bradley bunted for a base hit to load the bases with no outs.Drown fought back to strike out Ally Stephens and Merry Ball before getting Tori Wharff on a grounder to third to tap-dance the Bulldogs out of serious danger.”We had baserunners on all day and couldn’t get a big hit when we needed it,” Kowalski said.English took the momentum of its great escape and tacked on another run to the lead when Jess Dellazoppa singled with one down and came around to score on Earp’s two-out double to left.”We kind of switched it up a bit and moved Sammie up to lead off and she got a couple of big hits for us,” Fila said.The English defense came up huge for Drown again in the fifth as Cathia Hernandez threw out Wilson trying to leg out an inside-the-park home run and then, with two out and two on, she snared Fletcher’s hard grounder to end the inning.Hernandez also played a role in giving English a 5-1 lead in the bottom half of the fifth when she reached on a throwing error and scored on Newhall’s base hit to left. The late runs would prove huge in the seventh when Swampscott came charging back.A one-out walk to Lindsey Marini was followed by an error that put Russo on. Bradley singled with two outs and pinch hitter Lauren Sullivan doubled to score a pair and make it 5-3. But that’s where the rally ended as Drown got Heather Doyle to ground out for the final out.”We are going to take every game as it comes,” Fila said.