YARMOUTH — Falling behind 2-0 before even getting a turn to bat didn’t put a damper on Yarmouth on Monday.
The Clippers evened the score after one inning, then kept the momentum going long enough to hold off Poland, 5-3, in a WMC Class B South softball clash at Michael Brown Field.
“The last two games, we hadn’t scored until the third inning, I think, of both games,” Yarmouth coach Amy Ashley said. “So it was important today that we come back, and no matter how many they scored, that we try to win that inning. And we didn’t win it, we tied it, but that was a big momentum-builder for us.”
The Knights’ (4-2) bats came out hot. Chloe Tufts and Jessica Pratt connected on consecutive one-out singles, and, two batters later, Maddy Simard reached on an error to score Tufts.
After Morgan Brousseau drew a walk to load the bases, Ashton Sturtevant was hit by a pitch to bring home Pratt for a quick 2-0 lead.
The first two batters in the bottom of the inning for the Clippers (3-0) were a give and take. Andrea St. Pierre led off with a single off Poland starting pitcher Ally Gagne, but Sydney St. Pierre grounded into a fielder’s choice to keep Yarmouth out of scoring position.
Sophie McGrath then took all the bases, and took away the Poland lead. A double to the fence in left-center was followed by a throw to the plate that couldn’t stop Sydney St. Pierre from scoring. McGrath took advantage of the throw to move to third, then came home on an errant throw to tie the game.
“We’ve been talking a lot about base running and trying to be aggressive,” Ashley said. “And I thought our base runners did a really good job of manufacturing some runs that probably shouldn’t have been scored. But in weather like this, and a wet ball, as base runners you really want to be aggressive.”
The Poland offense wasn’t aggressive enough. The Knights went down 1-2-3 in the top of the second before Yarmouth scored its final three runs in the bottom half.
“They’re a good ball team, and we knew they were going to score some runs, so in order to win a game we had to keep scoring runs,” Poland co-coach Kayla Vannah said. “To kind of tap out in the first inning doesn’t help us.”
A fielder’s choice went the Clippers’ way to keep the offense going in the second. After walking to lead off the inning, Tasha Powers was safe at second on Adriana Whitlock’s grounder. Following an out, Yarmouth took advantage of the second life. Sydney St. Pierre singled in one run, then a McGrath single and an error drove in two more.
Again, the Knights couldn’t answer. A two-out walk drawn by Simard after a lengthy at-bat broke up a string of six straight batters retired by Yarmouth starting pitcher Ceanne Lyon, but five more outs followed before Lyon walked another batter in the fifth.
“We need to swing the bat,” Poland co-coach Kat Seeley said. “They’re not swinging the bat enough, and they’re watching third strikes go by them, and that’s not going to help us win a game.”
Gagne allowed just one more hit and two walks after the first two innings, but the Knights failed to take much momentum from their pitcher’s gaining momentum.
Tufts’ fifth-inning walk followed by an unsuccessful Yarmouth fielder’s choice to put two runners on for Poland. A Sarah Walton groundout back to Lyon moved both runners into scoring position, but another comebacker to Lyon ended that threat.
“Can’t win a game when you leave runners on. We left 10 runners on when we played Cape on Saturday, we left (eight) runners on tonight,” Vannah said. “We need to start executing, and we haven’t been doing that the past two games.”
The Knights finally found some more offense in the sixth. Brousseau led off with a double to deep center, then gave way to pinch runner Kaira Thibault, who scored on Sturtevant’s sacrifice bunt and an error.
A two-out double by pinch hitter Shelby Lafrinea in the seventh was Poland’s last-gasp effort, but Lyon induced a pop-up on her next pitch to close out the win.
The victory kept Yarmouth undefeated early in the season, and Ashley said any win at this point is a big one for her underclassmen-heavy team.
For the Knights, it’s a second-consecutive defeat after a 4-0 start.
“We came out guns blazing with this year, and then (against) Cape we kind of fizzled and we were very flat, and today, I don’t think we seemed as flat as we were on Saturday, but we just didn’t have it,” Vannah said.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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