LYNN — Heads-up baserunning was the name of the game for the Lynn English softball team Thursday afternoon, as the Bulldogs notched six runs on passed balls in an 11-4 victory over Somerville at Breed Middle School.
“The girls have been really improving with that over the past week or so, and they’ve really been taking cues from the coaches and learning from our previous games,” said English coach Ashley Aldred. “It’s important to get runs in any way you can, especially on days when you’re not hitting that much, so it was nice to see us staying aggressive on the basepaths.”
Freshman Leanyah Pineiro had a big day at the plate for the Bulldogs, going 3-for-3 with one RBI and one run scored. Allie Chen went 3-for-3 with a double and three runs scored, while Jari Perez went 2-for-4 with one RBI and one run scored. Ariana Reynoso added one RBI in the win, while Kelsey McNeil, Kate Johansson, Janessa Lopez and Autumn Whitney each added a hit.
In the circle, it was Lopez who went the distance. She tossed all seven innings and allowed four runs on 10 hits with eight strikeouts.
“It seems like every game she just gets better and better,” Aldred said of Lopez. “She really controlled the pace of the game and kept us in it until we could start scoring runs.”
The Bulldogs fell behind early in this one, as Somerville came out swinging in the top of the first inning and scraped together a few hits to pick up a 1-0 lead.
English ended up getting one back in the bottom of the second thanks to a walk by Chen — who then stole second and came all the way around to score on a passed ball — but it wasn’t until the bottom of the fourth inning that the Bulldogs really started to pour it on.
It all started with a single from Whitney, then Chen doubled and Pineiro singled to load the bases. From there, three passed balls in a row brought home three Bulldogs runs to make it a 4-1 game. Two walks and a fielding error brought home two more runs before Perez laced an RBI single to give English a 7-1 lead after four innings.
Pineiro’s RBI single and Reynoso’s RBI groundout in the bottom of the fifth pushed the lead to 9-1; then the Bulldogs rounded out the scoring in the bottom of the sixth with two more runs on passed balls.
Somerville tried to go on a rally in the top of the seventh and pushed across two more runs, but Lopez shut the door and sealed the win for the Bulldogs.
Lynn English (2-2) moves on to face rival Lynn Classical Monday morning (10) back at Breed.
“It’s always fun to play in that cross-town rivalry game, and I think the girls always play a little harder when they go up against Classical,” said Aldred. “We know that we can compete in our league, so we just have to stay focused, keep hitting and keep making plays and will be in good shape.”
