LYNNFIELD — It had been 15 days since the Lynnfield softball team last played a game.
The No. 13 Pioneers showed little signs of rust Friday afternoon at home, scoring nine runs in the first inning en route to a 12-0 mercy-rule victory in five innings over visiting No. 20 St. Joseph Prep Phoenix in the preliminary round of the Division 3 North tournament.
“It’s always good to get that first tournament win, no matter how you get it,” said Lynnfield coach Peter Marinelli. “Other than that first inning, we were definitely a little flat at times, but that’s what happens with a long layoff. I told them after the game that they are going to have to pick it up a bit in the next round as the competition gets a little stiffer with every round. Today, we just did the best we could and thankfully it was good enough to win.”
The loss did not take anything away from the record-setting season of the Phoenix, which was in uncharted waters.
“Our team has never made the tournament,” said first-year coach Stephen McGovern. “We had 10 wins this year after having only 10 wins in the last four years. So making the tournament, we are proud of ourselves.
“We also play on dirt fields so our players were all wearing regular sneakers. Five of their runs in that first inning were on errors when we slipped or didn’t get a good throw off. We can whine about it but it was true. No way was I going to make the girls go buy turf shoes last night.”
Sophomore Reilly Ganter picked up the win, She gave up four hits, struck out five and walked two.
Senior second baseman Taylor Tringali led the offense. She was a perfect 3-for-3 with an RBI and two runs scored.
“Taylor hit the ball today and was driving the ball,” Marinelli said. “We had a couple of shots there but we weren’t driving the ball the way we should have.Their pitcher was throwing the ball just hard enough that if we had made decent contact the ball would have gone, but I think we were just too laid back.”
Breanna Serabian (2-for-4, 2 runs, stolen base) led the game off with a single and scored when Chloe Shapleigh’s fly ball to left was misplayed. Reilly Ganter (1-for-3, run, RBI triple) moved Shapleigh (1-for-3, run, RBI) to third with a single, then Jillian Babine (2-for-3, run, RBI) brought Shapleigh home with a single to make it 2-0. Sadie Gearan (1-for-3, run) kept the line moving with a 2-run double.
Tringali loaded the base with an infield single, then Sam Lebruska (1-for-3) ripped a 2-run single to plate Gearan and Babine and make it 5-0.
But the Pioneers weren’t done yet. Serabian reached on an infield error with Tringali scoring to make it 6-0. Allie Wing (2-for-4) made it 8-0 with a 2-run triple, then Shapleigh capped the scoring with an RBI single to make it 9-0.
Ganter helped her own cause with a triple in the third, scoring pinch-runner Jacqueline Carbone (2 runs, 2 stolen bases) who was running for Wing after Wing’s one-out double.
The Pioneers added two more in the bottom of the fourth to make it 12-0, thanks to some alert baserunning from Tringali. With one out, she singled, got to second on a passed ball and scored on a single by Jenna Brodigan (1-for-3, run, stolen base). Two batters later, Serabian blasted a long triple to the fence in center field to plate Brodigan.
Next up for Lynnfield is a first-round matchup at No. 4 Madison Park Sunday afternoon at 1.
“We will have to play better than today,” Marinelli said. “Today, I would have loved to get other kids in the game after that first inning, but we weren’t playing good enough to do that. We need to focus more and be more ready to play.”
