Lynn Babe Ruth 14U softball wins NE championship

The Lynn Babe Ruth 14U softball all-stars won the New England championship Sunday in Kingston with a 4-3 win over Plymouth, N.H., when Ally Dunnigan knocked home Emma DeJoie with the winning run in the bottom of the seventh.With two out, DeJoie bunted her way on, and Madison Angelli reached on an error. A wild pitch moved them along before Dunnigan got her walkoff hit.”This was one of the best softball games I’ve ever seen,” said manager Paul DeJoie. “And the story of this tournament, for us, was our defense. We made some great plays in the field. The defense was some of the best I’ve ever seen.”Dunnigan and Johnna Lee Calder shared all the pitching duties over the six-game, two-day weekend that saw Lynn crawl out of the loser’s bracket after falling to the same Plymouth team Saturday in a rain-soaked affair, 4-1.Lynn had won the first game Saturday – which was the final game of pool play – with a 6-1 victory over Plymouth, Mass. In that game, Calder went the distance, striking out five. Angelli, Shannon Magner and Jessica DeJoie were all 2-for-3.The loss to the New Hampshire team was the only sub-par defensive one, DeJoie said.”Ally pitched well, but she didn’t have much support in the field.”From that point on, DeJoie said, his team made only two errors in the final four games.Game No. 3 Saturday saw Lynn and Plymouth, Mass, at each other again and this time, Lynn won going away, 15-5, thanks to a seven-run fourth inning.”We never looked back,” DeJoie said.”Everybody hit,” DeJoie said, but Emma DeJoie and Alaina Gridley stood out. Dunnigan got the win, going five innings.Berlin, N.H., was next – the first game Sunday morning, and that was a 10-4 Lynn win with Calder going the distance, striking out five.Courtney Braswell as 3-for-4 in that game with two runs scored, and Jessica DeJoie was 1-for-3 with an RBI.That put Lynn in the final, but it had to win twice. The first was a 5-4 win over Plymouth, N.H., with Lindsay Tobin going 2-for-3. Lynn was up, 5-1 before Calder gave way to Dunnigan, who shut Plymouth down.In the final game, Calder started and Dunnigan finished. Gridley was 1-for-3 with a triple, Dunnigan 2-for-4, and Emma DeJoie 2-ror-3 with two runs, and Tianna Evelyn, 1-for-2 with two big RBI. Lynn also turned three double plays.The 14U Babe Ruth division does not have a World Series, so Lynn ends its season with the regional title.Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].