LOWELL — You just had a feeling things weren’t going to go right for the St. Mary’s softball team Wednesday.
And you would have been right.
A horrendous first inning in which anything that could go wrong, did, proved too much for the Spartans to overcome, and they fell in the Division 3 state semifinal; 8-0, to Middleborough.
Right off the bat, in the top of the first inning, Spartan pitcher Lily Newhall walked the lead off hitter, “and that’s not like her at all,” said Coach Colleen Newbury.
Things got truly bizarre after that. Middleborough pitcher Cassidy Marchado’s bunt hugged the third baseline. The Spartans elected to let it roll foul. Only it didn’t. Haley Rizzo, who had drawn the walk, wound up on second and Marchado had a Single.
Alexandra Welch hit one to deep center that Brooke Maloney caught up to. But the ball glanced off her glove, and Rizzo scored the first run.
“Few people could have caught up with that ball,” Newbury said. “She did, but it bounced off her glove.”
Things just got worse as three more runs came across.
“Then,” Newbury said, “we get a double play to get out of the inning.”
It was nothing doing for St. Mary’s in the first as the Spartans went in order. And after Middleborough tacked on two more runs in the second, things looked even bleeker.
There was a glimmer of hope in the bottom of the second when St Mary’s got two runners on with two out, but Marchado got the third out.
Nobody did much of anything until the top of the seventh when Middleborough scored its final run.
“Defense and pitching wins games,” Newbury said. “It’s not like ours was bad, but theirs was better.
“Overall though,” she said, “I couldn’t have asked for a better season.”
