14U MANSFIELD SWARM WEEK ONE RECAP

EASTON BENGALS

After snow on Friday and a venue change from Easton to Mansfield, the SWARM was excited to kick off the 2011 NEAAU season.  The first two innings were scoreless as the teams shook the rust off after a long winter in New England.

In the bottom of third inning, Colleen Larose started things off with her patented hard shot double to left field. Both Jackie Carchedi and Kathryn Eberhart walked and stole bases to take a 3-0 lead.

The Swarm would score 3 more runs in the fifth after a walk, a single by Larose and a home run by Carchedi. Maddie Lally turned a double play in right field throwing the runner out at first after the catch. The Easton team was held scoreless by Larose and Cory Burns through the first five innings.

Mansfield would again add two more runs in the bottom of the sixth when Madeline Lally recorded her first hit of the season.  Swarm defense was strong with only one error heading into the top half of the seventh inning.         

The tide turned against the Swarm in the seventh, as Mansfield walked five and gave up a hit, had a couple of errors.  However, the girls were able to regain their composure to escape with a narrow 8-7 win over the Bengals to start 1-0.

WORCESTER HEAT

This one was all Mansfield from start to finish as Mansfield scored in four of six innings. Ten of Eleven Swarm members had hits in the contest. Colleen LaRose and Maddie Lally led the offensive attack each with 3 hits. Jocelyn Reardon, Rachel Carafa and Ashley Cuneo each collected two hits for a total of 18 for the SWARM.

The defense was led by a stellar pitching performance by Kathryn Eberhart.  She had total command and was “in the zone” as she struck out 13 of 18 batters while giving up only two hits.  Morse from Worcester had a solid double in the 5^th inning, however it was short lived, when she was thrown out trying to stretch it to a triple.  Center fielder Jackie Carchedi made a great cutoff throw to Reardon, who in turn flipped it to Larose for a solid tag.

Manager Dave Eberhart was pleased with the opening day performance, but noted “there are still a few areas that the girls need work on. It’s a long season and we played 12 good innings today and one not so good inning, still a promising start.

Mansfield improves to 2-0 on the season.