LYNNFIELD — Whenever you play a team the caliber of the visiting Amesbury Red Hawks softball team, you know bringing your “A” game is a must to compete.
But it’s even that much more difficult when Amesbury brings its “A+” game to town.
Monday at the high school, the Pioneers were in it for two innings, trailing 1-0, but after that, it was all-Red Hawks, who pounded out 14 hits en route to a 5-inning mercy rule 13-0 win.
“We had too many bad swings today, that was the bottom line,” Lynnfield head coach Hector Longo said. “We tell them to shorten their swings when you face someone as strong as their pitcher. We tell them to choke up on the bat and get up on the handle to be able to do that, but we just didn’t do that.
“They did hit us, but their bloopers fell in and ours didn’t and you can’t give a team like that four or five outs in an inning and then they found some holes and crushed the ball.”
Amesbury head coach Emily Crinnell said a key factor in the game was the Red Hawks’ ability to come up with timely hits.
“They’re a strong team, but today we were able to string hits together,” Crinnell said. “Some games this year we haven’t been able to do that, but we did today. It was just one of those days when we put the ball in play.”
Lynnfield’s Sophia Brown and Gia Gagnon split time in the circle. In four innings, Brown gave up eight runs on 10 hits with a strikeout, while Gagnon mopped up with one inning of relief, allowing five runs on four hits with two walks.
Amesbury ace Izzy Levasseur was virtually unhittable. She struck out 11 of 15 batters and carried a perfect game into the top of the fifth inning. Kaila George played the spoiler, breaking up the bid with a lead-off single. She lined a rocket to Amesbury second baseman Celia Tavares, who somehow managed to get a glove on it but couldn’t hold on to make a throw to first.
If there was a bright spot, it was the defensive play of George in left and Catie Kampersal in center. The duo made a handful of spectacular catches on deep, hard-hit fly balls to rob the Red Hawks’ batters of extra-base hits. The highlight was George’s leaping grab over the fence, denying Callie Catarius a likely home run.
“Kaila and Catie both did a nice job out there,” Longo said.
“I thought the left fielder especially made some great plays, especially the one that was up against the fence. That was a great catch,” Crinnell said. “They’re a strong team.”
Longo did not rule out the possibility that the No. 16 Pioneers could see the No. 2 Red Hawks in the Division 4 tournament.
“We could, and I just told the girls that I’m not going up to Amesbury to get blown out 13-0,” Longo said. “If we get to the second round against them, we are going into the game to win. We just have to make the proper adjustments, which we didn’t do today. We’ve been playing pretty well lately and we haven’t had one of these this year. We certainly didn’t expect this, but there seems to be an Amesbury-type thing where we just think they’re going to beat us.”
Lynnfield (7-10) is back in action on Wednesday at 4 p.m. against Pentucket, while Amesbury’s (11-3) travels to Rockport on the same day and time.
