PEABODY — On a sunny Friday afternoon with fans gathered all the way up the Fenwick hill, Bishop Fenwick’s softball team defended its home diamond against Lynn Classical.
The Crusaders – who wound up winning 7-2 – were trailing by two runs and had registered just one hit going into the fourth inning.
Lilli Bonacorsi snapped that drought, leading off the inning with a double. Then, a base hit from Katy O’Brien moved her to third.
From there, Bonacorsi was quick on her feet when a passed ball got past Classical, scoring to put the Crusaders on the board (2-1).
“She’s been hitting the ball well lately. It was good to see it continue,” Fenwick coach Brian Seabury said.
Fenwick didn’t stop there as both Gabriella Maiuri and Maisie Dunn brought in runs to give the Crusaders a 3-2 lead after four innings. With Dunn, she executed a squeeze play to perfection.
“The execution of that was great. We had bases loaded and she got the bunt down and moved the runners,” Seabury said.
O’Brien and Jaleila “GiGi” Aupont split the game on the mound. O’Brien retired three across three innings, while Aupont threw eight strikeouts across the final four innings.
Seabury was pleased with O’Brien, as Friday was her debut on the hill.
“It was Katy’s first appearance today. She was throwing strikes,” Seabury said. “It was good to get her going just in case we need her down the road.”
And when Aupont got the keys to close it, there was no doubt in Seabury’s mind.
“When we got into a little bit of trouble, GiGi did what she always does,” Seabury said. “She closed the door. She threw a lot of strikes and got a lot of outs.”
Finding positives from a negative, Classical coach Joe Morin enjoyed playing against Aupont as it gets his team ready for tournament play.
“That’s why we scheduled them. Our conference isn’t the strongest, so we scheduled them,” Morin said. “They’re a great team and we wanted to see GiGi pitch since the top teams in our division will throw just like her.”
The positives continued from Morin.
“I’m happy with how we performed. Obviously, we want to win, but we played well all-around,” Morin said. “I liked how we got the lead early. Our game plan was to get out to an early lead, which we did.”
That 2-0 lead came as seniors MeKayla Poisson and Manuela Lizardo each connected on solo shots.
“MeKayla has been hitting the ball well this year. She got a lot stronger in the offseason,” Morin said. “She’s been driving a lot of balls to the fence and I knew eventually she’d hit one out of the park.”
The Crusaders tacked on one more run in the fifth inning, and three in the sixth to close the game 7-2.
“It was a game that we needed because we were in a bit of a slump,” Seabury said. “The last couple of weeks, we’ve been struggling to get some runs in, so it was nice to get seven in.”
Fenwick looks to carry its momentum to Monday when the Crusaders travel to Reading at 4 p.m. The Rams host Somerville the same day with first pitch scheduled for 4:15 p.m.
