GLOUCESTER — Despite battling back to tie the score multiple times on Tuesday, the St. Mary’s softball team made a few too many mistakes and ended up falling 5-4 to Gloucester in a non-conference battle on the road.
“The bottom line is that we didn’t play well enough to win this game,” said St. Mary’s coach Frank Pagliuca. “When you make mistakes in the field and don’t capitalize on your opportunities, you’re not going to win.”
Brooke Moloney went 2-for-4 with one RBI and two stolen bases in the loss for St. Mary’s, while Alyssa Grossi went 2-for-3 with a double and one RBI. Marina DiBiasio went 1-for-4 with a triple and one RBI, while Emely Rodriguez (1-for-4), Sam Porazinski (1-for-3) and Ashanthy Padilla (1-for-3) each added one hit.
Pitcher Lily Newhall had a solid game in the circle as well, tossing six innings and allowing five runs on seven hits with five strikeouts.
But the key issue for the Spartans on the day was defense, as St. Mary’s made four errors and misjudged several fly balls in the outfield.
“Our defense is not where we need it to be right now,” said Pagliuca. “We’re going to have to get back to the basics and hit it hard in practice, because when we score four runs we should win most of those games. We didn’t help out our pitching at all (Tuesday).”
The game was a back-and-forth affair from the very beginning. In the bottom of the first, Gloucester got a leadoff double from Ella Marshall. After a flyout on the next play, Riley Thibodeau dropped down a sacrifice bunt and Marshall used the opportunity to come all the way around to score and give Gloucester a 1-0 lead.
But in the top of the third, the Spartans answered back. A walk and two stolen bases put a runner on third for Moloney, who smacked an RBI groundout to tie the score at 1-1.
Then, once again, Gloucester responded with an RBI single from Ashley Aiello in the bottom of the fourth, pulling ahead 2-1.
St. Mary’s looked like it may have turned the tide in the top of the fifth, when the Spartans tacked on three runs thanks in part to an RBI double from Grossi and an RBI triple from DiBiasio in back-to-back at-bats. A third run scored after a throwing error from Gloucester, and all of a sudden the Spartans had a 4-2 lead.
But once again, it didn’t last. Gloucester battled back in the bottom of the fifth, when Jenna Hoofnagle — who also earned the win on the mound — knocked a two-RBI double into left-center field to knot the score at 4-4.
That momentum carried right into the bottom of the sixth, when Gloucester took the lead again on an RBI single from Ella de Gaspe Beaubien.
The Spartans made one final charge in the top of the seventh, getting two runners on base before Hoofnagle forced the game-ending groundout.
St. Mary’s (2-1) hosts Masconomet Thursday (4).
“The good thing is that we have a short layoff before the next game, so we have a chance to turn around and bounce back from this one,” said Pagliuca. “We’ll work hard on defense in practice on Wednesday and then try to come out with a better effort in our next game.”
