At the end of a seven-pitch at bat in the bottom of the seventh inning, with the score tied 5-5 and the bases load, Mackenzie Skwiercynski ’12 drove in Co-Captain Kayla Maloney ’13 and earned a 6-5 walkoff victory for Andover Softball over Cushing. Andover stayed up 4-0 on Friday until Cushing came back in the sixth and seventh innings to take the lead 5-4, but Andover answered in the clutch and came back. Andover also defeated Choate in both games of a doubleheader on Saturday and continued its win streak. Kristin Mendez ’13 began Andover’s seventh-inning comeback with a single to right field. Maloney followed with a walk on eight pitches and Nikki Pelletier ’13 loaded the bases by singling to right. With the Cushing infield drawn in to preserve the lead, Kasey Hartung ’14 shot the ball past the third baseman and into left field to knock Mendez in for the tying run before Skwierczynski hit the walkoff single. Andover pushed across its first run in the bottom of the first inning, working off base hits from Co-Captain Abby Chung ’13 and Mackenzie Bradford ’15 and a sacrifice bunt from Mendez. Andover continued to put runs on the board in the second inning. Hartung began with a double and crossed home after a sacrifice bunt and a wild pitch. Andover’s offense rolled through the third inning, moving ahead by four runs. Bradford and Mendez walked with one out, and Pelletier lined a two-out double to knock in two runs. With a comfortable 4-0 lead going into the sixth, Andover’s defense became complacent. Cushing capitalized by loading the bases with two outs and driving in two runs with a blooper to shallow center. Andover let up another stream of hits in the seventh and gave up three runs and almost sacrified the win before coming back to claim victory. The next day, Andover prevailed in both games of its double-header against Choate, winning 6-1 in the first and 2-1 in the second. In the first game, Andover moved out in front in the third inning with Chung, Bradford and Mendez stringing together three RBIs. Choate struck back in the latter half of the inning, aided by an error and three two-out singles. But Andover torched Choate in the fourth and fifth, putting together multiple hits for a resounding three runs. In the fourth, Pelletier got on base on an error and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Hartung then doubled to send her home and scored on a pair of singles from Skwierczynski and Sage Hunt ’12. Maloney led off the fifth with a single to left and came around on a triple by Pelletier. The highlight of the second game against Choate was a varsity pitching debut from Ravenne Nasser ’15 who, aided by contributions from three of her 2015 classmates, earned a win with six strikeouts. Meanwhile, Andover broke through in the third inning when Laura Ippolito ’14 singled and took advantage of a dropped throw that rolled only a couple of feet away by successfully making a mad dash to get to second base. Chung once again doubled, advancing Ippolito to third, who had to hold up in case Chung’s blast was caught. Chung moved to third on an infield out and came home with what proved to be the winning run on a squeeze bunt from Mendez. Andover seeks to continue its winning streak against Cushing and Tabor tomorrow.
