Lynn Babe Ruth softball 14s split pair

The Lynn Babe Ruth 14U all-star softball team split a pair of games Friday in the New England Regionals, leaving them in a must-win situation today (10:30) when the play the Southern New Hampshire runner-up.The Lynners opened the day with an 11-7 loss to the host team of the tournament, Rochester, N.H.; but came back later in the day to defeat Dover, the Southern N.H. champion, 11-1 in six innings.”Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong in that first game,” said manager Jim Giguere. “The game was a 9 a.m. and it was against the host team, so they probably had a little bit of an advantage. But we came back in the second game and we played great.”Johnna Calder was on her game against Dover, mixing her pitches masterfully and inducing many ground ball out via an effective changeup, Giguere said.”She can (catcher) Meghan Leavett worked well together,” he said. “I mean, I know that (Calder’s) father (who is one of the coaches) was giving the signs to Meghan, but she had to take them and give them to Johnna, and she did.”Johnna had (Dover) off-balance all game long,” he said. “She and Meghan were on the same page.”Giguere said, “the girls were hitting the ball all over the place, and our small-ball game was working well too.”Allie Giguere led off the Dover game with a bunt single that helped trigger a four-run first inning. Also contributing were Emily Stevenson, Taylor Piazza and Leavett. After scoring a run in the second inning, Lynn broke the game open in the third with five runs.Calder was in the middle of that rally too, with a double. Also, Alaina Gridley, Julia Jordan and Jillian Gentile had base hits to drive in runs.After Dover put one run on the board in the fifth inning, Lynn came back in the sixth to retake its 10-run lead, and Calder got the side in order in the bottom of the sixth to preserve the victory.Lynn is the only team in the tournament to be playing four games in pool play. The other teams in its bracket play three. After today’s fourth preliminary, Lynn will have either a win or a loss taken away from it via a drawing, Giguere said.”But,” he said, “we have to win (today). If we lose, it’s all over. But even if we win, we have a one in four chance of either advancing or going home.”In the morning game, Lynn got off to a bad start, giving up four runs to Rochester in the first inning.”We had three fly balls that were misplayed,” said Giguere. “two of them were errors, and one of them fell in. And our fielding, which is normally solid … well, we shot ourselves in the foot sometimes, and we didn’t hit until it was too late.”However, Lynn battled back to score seven runs, with Gridley, Stevenson, Leavett and Gentile getting two hits apiece.