Two out of three games wasn’t bad for the Londonderry High School varsity softball squad in its first trio of 2018 games last week, as the new crew book-ended wins over Spaulding and Pinkerton around a loss to Winnacunnet.
The Lady Lancers got their new season started in productive if not highly-artistic fashion with a 14-7 road win in Rochester on Wednesday, April 11.
An huge second inning performance, in which the locals plated nine runs on 11 hits, was the centerpiece of the Londonderry squad’s success against the host Spaulding High Red Raiders.
The Lancer girls bashed out some 20 hits and got their pitching work from Ila Brown, who helped her own cause by smacking two hits including a three-run homer. Lauren Misiaszek, Alivia Proulx, Sarah Fawcett, Gia Komst, and Alyssa Vaillancourt connected for three hits apiece.
Spaulding worked hard to rebound from its early 9-0 deficit, cutting the LHS lead down to four runs twice at 10-6 and 11-7. But Londonderry put the matter to rest by plating three more markers in the top of the seventh to reach the final, 14-7 tally.
“Ila walked nine and struck out four, but had to throw 160 pitches. So it was a rough outing,” said coach Wayne MacDougall.
In its epic, nine-run second frame, Londonderry hammered out 10 consecutive hits and hit for the cycle as a group with singles, doubles, triples, and a home run.
“One of the ugliest wins ever, but a win none the less,” said MacDougall. “The game took 2 1/2 hours to complete.”
After taking a 6-2 loss on the chin to the visiting Winnacunnet High Lady Warriors at LHS on Friday, April 13, in slipping to 1-1 on the young campaign, the Lancers made the short trip to Derry the next afternoon to take on the rival Pinkerton Lady Astros and won 10-7 in extra innings to move to 2-1.
The teams played some hot potato with the lead, with the host Lady Astros grabbing a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first before seeing Londonderry trim that lead in half to 2-1 in the top of the third.
The hosts padded their lead a tad at 3-1 with a single run in the bottom of the fourth, but the Lady Lancers surged into a 4-3 lead with a three-run top of the fifth.
Pinkerton reclaimed the lead at 6-4 with a three-run fifth frame of its own, but Londonderry responded by scoring three more times in the top of the sixth to bag a 7-6 advantage.
But the Lady Astros knotted the score at 7-7 by scoring once in the bottom of the sixth, and there would be no more scoring until the top half of the ninth when the visiting squad ended the scoring by putting up a three-spot to make it a 10-7 game.
The two teams combined for some 23 hits, with Londonderry lacing 14 of them and Pinkerton smacking nine.
The victorious LHS side received three hits from Misiaszek and two each from Vaillancourt and Komst.
The team was then set to stride into this week looking to get a winning streak rolling in a Monday , April 16 home game against the Concord High Crimson Tide girls. But when the lousy weather cancelled that game, the locals were left with games in Nashua at Bishop Guertin on Wednesday the 18th and then at home against Concord this Friday, April 20.
Guertin’s Lady Cardinals went 0-2 in their first two contests of the new campaign, and Concord split a pair of battles.