WATERVILLE — If you’re waiting for a surprise among Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference softball teams this spring, you won’t have to wait long.
“This season, especially, you can’t take any team for granted,” Messalonskee coach Samantha Moore said. “I think this year anyone can beat anyone, it just depends on the day you find the team. This was their on day and this was our off.”
The ‘on day’ belonged to Lawrence, which played sound defense and got timely pitching from Lilly Herrin in a 10-6 victory on Monday afternoon.
Messalonskee, coming off impressive back-to-back wins over Lewiston and Edward Little, falls to 3-6 in Class A North play while Lawrence is 4-6.
The Eagles beat Herrin and the Bulldogs 8-4 earlier this season, but this time the Bulldogs were prepared.
“We are in a really good groove right now,” Herrin said. “This is not the team that played them (the first time), We played really, really well tonight.”
The game was played on the artificial turf at Colby College, fortunate since the first three innings were plagued by a steady rain. Lawrence took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, but Messalonskee bounced back with two in the second inning on a pair of walks and a two-run double from Julia Guerrette.
“The ball was getting really hard to grip,” Herrin said. “The rain was not helping. I was all wet, I had nowhere to wipe my hand off.”
Eagle pitcher Alyssa Smith struggled with her control in the third when Lawrence scored four times on a pair of walks and a two-run double from Cassidy Sirois. Smith got out of the inning when McKenna Brodeur tracked down Herrin’s shot to right center and snared it in the webbing of her glove.
The Bulldogs tacked on a pair of runs in the fifth and sixth to take a 9-2 lead when the Eagles committed three errors. Lawrence played well in the field, getting a number of good plays from Herrin on the mound as well as the infield of Molly Folsom at third, Sirois at short and Hunter Mercier at second.
“I’m pleased with our game right now,” Lawrence coach Joey Marcoux said. “We made three critical errors the last time we played them. Today we didn’t make them.”
The Eagles finished with 11 hits, five of those coming in the bottom of the seventh when they scored four times.
“They were starting to time me up,” said Herrin, who finished with eight strikeouts.
Makenzie Charest singled twice and doubled for Messalonskee, while teammates Brodeur and Makayla Wilson added two hits each.
Marcoux moved Haley Holt down to the seventh spot in the batting order and it paid off as the junior catcher singled three times for Lawrence.
“I’m finally getting out of my slump,” Holt said. “I did really well in preseason, but it was downhill from there. I felt like I was under a lot of pressure when I was the four hitter.”
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