Lynn 16s drop pair in N.E. tournament

It wasn’t a good day for the Lynn Lightning Babe Ruth 16-and-under softball team Friday. First, they were halfway from their hotel in New York to Pittsfield, the site of their doubleheader Friday, when they found out their 1 p.m. game had been pushed back to 4.Then, they lost both games of the doubleheader.The first one was a heartbreaker, a 4-3 defeat at the hands of Norwalk, Conn. The second one … the less said the better. The Lightning dropped that one to the Berkshire Force, 11-0, in a game shortened by the 10-run rule.”The first one … we should have had that,” said Lynn manager Steve Martin, whose Lightning will be begin the double-elimination round (the previous games have been pool play) today against Way, N.H. For Lynn to capture the tournament, it’ll have to win five games today and tomorrow.Michaela Hamill “pitched lights out,” said Martin, “in the first game. She deserved better than what she got.”Hamill went the distance, “and she was immense,” Martin said. She surrendered only four hits, strike out four, and walked three.Lynn had a 3-1 lead going into the bottom of the seventh. To that point, Shana Zeramby (1-for-3, RBI), Gabby Kenniston (1-for-3, RBI) and Ivy Martin (2-for-3, RBI) and Hamill (2-for-3) had helped the Lightning achieve that lead. But it all went awry in the bottom of the seventh.”Then,” Martin said, “we just had a bad inning. We dropped a fly ball, didn’t cover a base … and the next thing you know, we lose the game.”We played great for six innings,” he said. “And then … that. We outplayed them, but they won.”In the night cap, “there’s not much to say,” Martin said. “We were licking our wounds after that first game.”The Force scored four runs in the first inning off pitcher Ivy Martin “and never looked back,” Martin said.”It just got worse from there.”Last year, the 16s were runners-up in the New England tournament and were invited to play in the softball World Series in North Carolina. Last week, the 14-and-under team won the New England championship in a tournament in Kingston, Mass.