Softball

Softball Bounces Back With 22 Runs in Two Wins

Rachel Moore ’19 sent a ball rocketing over the left field fence and swiftly rounded the bases, scoring a run that boosted Andover Softball’s sizeable lead in its game against St. Paul’s on Wednesday. The team ultimately defeated St. Paul’s 12-2 in its third win of the season. Despite falling to Governor’s 14-2 last Friday, Andover quickly rebounded to defeat Poly Prep 10-2 last Saturday. The team’s season record now stands at 3-1.

On Saturday, Andover defeated Poly Prep with a strong team effort at the plate in the final two innings to score seven runs.

Moore said, “Hitting was good and overall there were very few errors in the field. Sarah Carmichael [’18] made a really nice running catch in left field that would have easily been a double if not caught.”

On Wednesday, Andover hosted St. Paul’s and had a solid game at the plate, making numerous hits to drive runners into home base and get more runs up on the board, according to Kaitlin Ervin ’20.

Ervin said, “We had a strong game offensively even with a slow pitcher, and we had a smooth adjustment to this. Our defense has also been strong, and we hope to continue our efforts looking ahead to our game on Saturday.”

Moore said, “The team kept the energy up even though it was freezing. Our offense did really well by getting base hits that added up. Elena Vinton ’19 made a nice play at first with a hard hit ball that she recovered and got the out.”

On Friday, Andover started out with high energy. Governor’s, however, was solid in the field, rarely allowing Andover to get on base and score for the remainder of the game, according to Kelly Sheng ’17.

Sheng said, “We kept high energy and got a small lead on Governor’s in the first few innings. They ended up making a lot of good plays later on, and we couldn’t keep up in fielding; I think it was the little mistakes that added up and lost us the game. It wasn’t a single inning that got us, but rather a gradual buildup of their lead.”

Looking forward, the team hopes to keep practicing routine plays in order to be prepared for future games, according to Sheng.

Sheng said, “We need to focus on keeping and extending our lead and learning not to get complacent, not to settle with small advantages over our opponents.” Andover will compete against North Reading High School on Saturday.