Mepham holds off Calhoun

Mepham senior Alexa Boscarino started strong in the circle in a Nassau Conference A-I softball battle with district-rival Calhoun by retiring the first six batters she faced. But it’s the way she finished that helped the Lady Pirates hold off the Lady Colts, 6-5, on April 16.

In the top of the seventh inning, Calhoun sent the heart of its order to the plate but Boscarino induced groundouts to herself, second base and shortstop by the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 hitters, giving Mepham (5-4 overall) a sweep of the regular season series between the teams.

“She hit her spots and threw everything well,” Lady Pirates coach Mike Muscara said. “The formula was to keep it down, because if you keep it up against [Calhoun’s] girls, they’ll smack it around.”

The Lady Colts (3-5) did battle back from a pair of four-run deficits with three runs in the sixth. Sophomore Jordan Walley’s run-scoring double off the wall in the right centerfield gap plated senior Joanna Marmo, who led off the inning with a single. Following a pop-out to short, junior Katelin Harrington drove in senior shortstop Lauren Trimarco with a groundout to third and the next batter, senior Kristina Barry, hit a single to left that scored Walley. Boscarino managed to end the threat by getting senior leadoff hitter Allison Abbene to ground out to second and strand the tying run on base.

“The effort the girls put in shows why we’ve made Conference I,” Calhoun coach Jason Boland said. “We definitely stepped up today and did a really nice job containing a team like Mepham.”

Mepham appeared to put the game out of reach in the bottom of the fifth thanks to aggressive baserunning by seniors Ashley Boscarino and Nicole Moccio. Boscarino led off with a single to right and stole second, scoring on a single by Moccio. With senior Nicole Aliberti at the plate, Moccio then stole second and continued to third when the ball went into the outfield following her collision with Trimarco at the bag. Aliberti then ripped a double to the gap in right- center, scoring Moccio. “I have some girls with a little speed and we’ll give them the steal sign,” Muscara said. “We put the pressure [on the defense] to make plays.”

Despite striking out 10 batters, including six in the first two innings, Calhoun starter Nicole Imhof was touched up for a booming home run by senior cleanup hitter Rachel Foley in the second and allowed three runs in the third with Foley again delivering the big blow—a two-run single to right that scored senior Katie Grodski and Ashley Boscarino. Senior Taylor Petersen, who led off the inning with a single to right, scored the first run of the inning on an infield single by Boscarino.

“I thought we played a very solid game,” Muscara said. “We got the timely hit when we needed it. Against [Nicole] Imhof you have to get [runs] early. She’s a good pitcher and she hits her spots.”

Calhoun got on the board in the fourth with Walley’s single driving in Marmo and freshman Kayla Pilotti sending Trimarco to the plate on a fielder’s choice.