RallyNorth.net

Methuen starts slow, rips Lawrence

Thursday, May, 27 By Dave Dyer
Staff writer

METHUEN — It’s usually how you finish that counts, and that’s exactly how the Methuen softball team is looking at their season.

It’s also how they played their opener in the Methuen Tournament at Burnham Road last night

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Trailing Lawrence 1-0 in the third, the Rangers scored two runs to take the lead and then poured it on with three runs in the fifth and five runs in the sixth on their way to a 10-2 victory.

That not only advanced Methuen (10-9) to tomorrow’s 7 p.m. championship game against the winner of tonight’s Andover-Amesbury game, but qualified it for the Division 1 North tournament for the 10th straight year.

And that, considering the use of three new pitchers during a roller-coaster ride through the regular season, is no small accomplishment.

“It took longer (to qualify) than it has the last few years, but I’m proud of the girls,” said Methuen coach Jason Smith. “We had some bad losses, but they didn’t hang their heads and they rallied to make it.”

In addition to inexperienced pitching, Methuen’s hitting has not been quite as consistent as Smith expected.

And, for the first few innings last night, it was also far from potent. But, led by junior veteran Becca Caterino and freshman newcomer Jess Rader, the bats came alive late.

Caterino (3 for 4) fueled the attack and accounted for the first two runs with a triple in the third, drilled a two-run single in the fifth and added an RBI single in the sixth to finish with five RBIs, while Rader had three hits and an RBI in his first varsity start since being called up from the JVs.

“She (Rader) did a nice job pitching for the JVs and was their most consistent hitter, so I figured I’d give her a shot and it worked out,” said Smith. “She fit right in.”

Also, Courtney Bradley was 2 for 4 and scored twice and Becca Armstrong was 1 for 3 with two RBIs. Bradley leads the area with 28 runs scored and Armstrong is first in RBIs with 30.

“We want to keep this up and have a good game (tomorrow),” said Smith. “We want to improve our seeding (for Division 1 North) and we have some girls who remember what it’s like not to win our tournament, and they don’t want to experience that again.”

For Lawrence (5-13) Shirley Veras hit the ball hard all evening an, after a single and triple, scored twice. Both times, she was driven home by Gerlyn Puello.