REVERE — Behind a 15 strikeout performance from pitcher Adrianna Fusco, the Revere softball team earned a big Greater Boston League win Friday, topping visiting Classical 5-2.
“Adrianna has been waiting a long time for this,” Revere coach Joe Ciccarello said. “We had a starting pitcher that graduated two years ago. Last year would have been (Fusco’s) junior year and first year starting but it didn’t happen. She’s waited three years for this and now she’s finally the starter as a senior.
And Fusco was on top of her game despite the rain Friday, holding the Rams to just four hits, five walks and two earned runs in the win.
“She’s making the most of it,” Ciccarello said. “She’s tough as nails. She worked on her pitching. She matured a great deal and she’s our ace. We love her and we got her back. She’s a phenomenal kid too. A Posse Scholarship winner and she’s going to Union College (New York).”
The Patriots didn’t leave her hanging at the plate either. Elianni Monge led the way hitting 2-for-3 with two RBI and one run scored. Lynzie Anderson also went 2-for-3 and scored a pair of runs. Gianna Uminski and Nina Cassinello each had one RBI while Adrianna Keefe and Julianna Raffa each scored one run.
“We knew she was a lefty (in Classical pitcher Brooke Warren) and we worked all day the past couple of days,” Ciccarello said. “My left arm is killing me throwing batting practice with my left arm trying to get them used to the ball coming from that side. It worked. Everybody put the bat on the ball. Even when we made outs we made some good hard outs.”
Warren was still effective for Classical, with six strikeouts while allowing 11 hits and four earned runs. The struggles came at the plate for the Rams. Kylie Poisson brought a bright spot when she plated Emily Tineo on a two-run home run in the sixth but other than that Classical struggled to get the big hits it needed.
“We have to put the ball in play,” Rams coach Erica Richard said. “We lost too many opportunities and looked at too many good pitches. Especially when we’re ahead in the count, you have to find a good pitch and put it in play. We can’t sit back and let the game come to us. We have to take advantage. And we can’t give them runs early off of physical and mental mistakes.”
Those mistakes were a pair of errors in the first that allowed Keefe to score and put the Patriots ahead 1-0 from the jump.
Revere kept chipping away from there. Monge plated Anderson on an RBI single in the second to add a run. Then in the fourth Anderson hit a two-out double and Monge and Cassinello laced back-to-back triples to extend the Revere lead to 4-0. Uminski brought home another run in the fifth on a fielder’s choice to bump the lead up to 5-0.
Tineo singled and stole second to set up Poisson in the sixth, who had the best hit of the night on her two-run homer straight to center field to cut the lead to 5-2.
Fusco walked Reese Brinkler in the seventh but a pair of strikeouts and a putout from Cassinelli in right field closed the door on the Rams.
Revere (3-0) and Classical (2-2, 2-1 in GBL play) will be right back at Wednesday (5) in Lynn.
