On April 4th, 2019, the Westford Academy Softball team played Chelmsford High School, suffering a tough 6-3 loss over eight innings.

The first inning started off with the girls letting up one run, but soon gaining it back. Senior Kaitlyn Chiasson managed to score a run after junior Maeve Proulx hit a ball deep into the outfield. that hopped over the fence, giving Proulx a triple. Chiasson hit a line drive that just got past the pitcher, resulting in a double. At the end of the first inning, the score was tied, 1-1.

The next three innings were fairly uneventful for Westford Academy. In each of these innings, they were only able to get three girls up at bat. All of the girls but one that got up at bat hit the ball, but they either hit a ground ball to get out or they hit a fly ball that ended up getting caught.

The girls in the field during those three innings played well enough to hold Chelmsford to scoring only one run. A notable play from the second inning was when the Chelmsford batter bunted and first baseman, senior Madelyn Boyer ran in to grab the ball and threw it back to the sophomore second baseman Robyn Bryce covering for Boyer, getting the batter out.

Freshman left fielder April Collamore made a key catch deep in the outfield, preventing a base hit in the third inning. In the fourth inning, junior center fielder Ryan McAuley caught a hard line drive in between the left and center field.

In the fifth inning, WA started to make a comeback with sophomore Meghan Mulhern hitting a ground ball to shortstop that Chelmsford missed resulting in a single. After this, McAuley hit a two run homerun getting Mulhern and giving WA the lead. At the end of the fifth inning, WA was up 3-2.

In the sixth inning, Westford Academy’s outfield caught two fly balls and got one hit. Batter Robyn Bryce hit a ground ball to third base, but the third baseman overthrew, resulting in Bryce stealing second base. Bryce then got stranded on base. After this inning, the score remained at 3-2, Westford Academy leading Chelmsford.

In the seventh inning, WA let up one run, but caught three good hits. On offense, Chiasson had a hit that went just far enough over the first baseman’s glove and far away enough from the right fielder that she got a single. Chiasson ended up getting stranded on base after this well placed hit.

To end the game, Chelmsford hit a three run homerun that Westford Academy could not come back from when they were at bat.

Junior pitcher Alyssa Graffeo pitched a good three innings, letting up only two runs and striking two girls out.

After the first three innings, WA put in freshman Ragini Kannan to pitch in place of Graffeo. Kannan pitched four full innings and was pulled halfway through the eighth and final inning. Kannan was unlucky when a Chelmsford batter hit a three run homerun off of her late in the eighth inning. Kannan threw some great pitches and one strikeout.

After Kannan, sophomore Emily Strzegowski came in to end the game. Strzegowski threw one strikeout to end the game.

“I think we played exceptionally well. I think we made a couple of mistakes, but the team bounced back. There’s a lot of camaraderie on this team and we’ve been playing very well as a team,” Head Coach Pete Burr said.