COURTESY PHOTO BY LEAH WARREN
Lynn pitcher Brooke Warren dazzled in the circle in Monday’s win.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — One of the newcomers to this year’s Lynn Junior Little League softball team has a name that should be familiar to the city’s softball circles.
She is 13-year-old Brooke Warren, daughter of former Classical softball coach Chris Warren, and she joins a team that went all the way to the state Junior Little League finals. All Warren did Monday night was strike out 10 Marbleheaders and help her team advance to the this year’s District 16 final with a 9-0 win.
“Brooke was the story tonight,” said Chad Wilkins, who coached the team last year that lost two games to Charlton in the state final.
Lynn will host the winner of tonight’s Saugus-Marblehead game Saturday (7) at Lynn Woods.
The “if-necessary” game would be played on July 5.
“Brooke has both a curve and a changeup, and she was hitting her spots,” said Wilkins. “She kept the hitters off-balance. And when she got into trouble, she got out of it.”
Her only real difficulty came in the top of the fifth inning, when Marblehead put runners on second and third with one out but Warren pitcher her way out of the jam.
“Pitching and defense definitely wins games,” said Wilkins. “And that’s true tonight. We only had one error. And we didn’t have any in our opener against Saugus.”
In that game, played last week, the two teams were locked in a pitchers’ duel. It was a 1-0 game into the fifth inning, when Lynn broke it open.
Warren is one of two pitchers on this year’s team, the other being Abby Fila. Wilkins isn’t afraid to use either of them.
“In this kind of a tournament,” he said, “you need two pitchers to win.”
Offensively, Lynn spread the wealth. Kiara Edmonds, who spent the spring playing varsity softball at Classical, benefited from her experience, and sent 2-for-4. Also doing well for Lynn was Kristen Brazell and Fila, each of whom had two hits.
This year’s roster consists of Edmonds, Warren, Fila, Brazell, Amanda Wilkins, Mackenzie Shea, Kaitlyn O’Neill, Katie Donovan, Julia Nickolau, Eliza Brown, Amanda Tobin, Keri Clougherty, Riley Mannion and Kylie Poisson, who’s injured, but hopes to be back later in the season if the team’s still playing.
