St. Mary’s softball puts it all together in win over Williams

LYNN – Things seem to be going along quite well for the St. Mary’s softball team.The Spartans, the two-time defending state Division 3 champions, raised their record to 7-0 Wednesday with an almost clinical 8-1 defeat over Archbishop Williams at Rogato Field at Breed Middle School. And everywhere coach Colleen Newbury looked, she saw positives.Let’s start with sophomore pitcher Brooke L’Abbe.”It helps when she’s striking out eight batters, and that she threw strikes to begin with,” said Newbury. “That keeps the fielders behind her in the game. The game had kind of a nice rhythm to it.”And about that fielding?”I thought we did really well in the field,” she said. “We made some nice plays and didn’t make any errors.”And what about overall?”It was nice to see a lot of people get involved ? and in a lot of different ways,” she said. “We ran the bases well, we got some big hits in the late innings to get the extra runs for Brooke.”And the thing is,” she said, “we haven’t had a whole lot of good practices, with all the bad weather and everything.”St. Mary’s got started right away when Sabrina Iannetti singled to lead off the bottom of the first, stole second, and scored on Allison Butler’s double. Butler then came home when L’Abbe singled and it was 2-0, Spartans.Williams got one of those runs back in the top of the third. Sarah Clark led off with a bloop single to left field, stole second, and continued her trip around the bases on a passed ball and a wild pitch. L’Abbe was in trouble only once after that, in the fifth, when Williams put two runners on with one out. But she escaped the jam when Caitlin Kearney lined to shortstop.St. Mary’s restored its two-run lead in the fourth when Alexandra Fisher walked, went to second on Victoria Viger’s sacrifice bunt, and scored on Butler’s single.The Spartans put even more distance between themselves and the Bishops an inning later, scoring two runs to make the score 5-1. Genevieve Benoit (running for Ariel LaRosa, who had singled) scored one run on Brianna Holmes’ groundout to third; and Angela Dandreo, who had walked, scored on Mia Murray’s sacrifice fly.St. Mary’s got three more runs in the sixth. Viger reached on an error and went to second when Iannetti bunted her way on.Two outs later, a LaRosa fielder’s choice grounder scored Viger, and both Iannetti and Benoit came home on a base hit by Holmes.Aside from striking out eight batters, L’Abbe gave up only three hits. She didn’t walk anybody, although she hit one batter.