A Sarah Onorato ’11 grand slam highlighted a 10 run explosion in the 2nd inning of Andover’s road win at Middlesex last Friday. The next day, however, the team fell victim to a relentless Choate team in a blowout loss at home. After a scoreless first inning on Friday, Andover got to work on its second inning outburst. Captain Sarah Boylan ’09 led off the inning with a walk, and was driven home by a Caroline Gattuso ’09 single. Sonya Schoenberger ’11 drove the next two runs home with a single of her own to run the score to 3-0. Two walks then loaded the bases for Onorato, who cleared them with her bomb into the left-center gap. Andover scored three more runs on singles by Alayna Garbarino ’10 and Brianna McCarthy ’09, as Andover cruised to a 12-2 victory. On the mound was Gattuso, who threw four scoreless innings and struck out 6 batters to bring her record on the year to 3-0. Mackenzie Skwierczysnki ‘12 relieved Gattuso, and pitched the last three innings in her varsity debut. The 10 run second showed why Andover’s depth is one of the team’s strength. Middlesex issued 12 walks on the day, and Andover drove those base runners home with 11 hits. One of those hits was Onorato’s grand slam, which was good for her first home run of the season. Onorato continues to sizzle at the plate with a .533 batting average and six RBIs. Also impressive has been her play behind the plate as the team’s catcher. “Sarah has also done a good job calling pitches and is working especially well with Caroline Gattuso,” said Coach Peter Drench. On Saturday, the team suffered after Choate scored two runs in the top of the first. Andover bounced back as Boylan doubled home a run in the home half of the inning, but Choate had 4 hits and 2 runs in the top of the second to bring the score to 7-1. Despite a 2-run double from Gattuso in the next half inning, Andover couldn’t recover from the early six run deficit, and ended up losing 13-4. “After a suspect play in the infield, Choate scored the two runs in the first inning that set the tone for the rest of the game,” said Coach Drench. Andover players knew that the way the team played on Saturday was not up to its potential. “Choate was a good team. That said, we could have easily competed with them had we played our game,” said Onorato. On the positive side of things, Boylan has improved her game, as she hit the ball hard in both games and looked like she has in the past at the plate. Gattuso also showed that she is not only a weapon on the mound, as she established herself as a rock in the Andover lineup with a 3 for 4 game on Saturday. Despite its first loss of the season, Coach Drench is confident in his 3-1 team moving forward. “Our best days are ahead. This is a good group and they’re unafraid of working at the game, and I know that we’ll do our best to improve.”
