Clippers fall in 10 innings

COVENTRY — Tuesday’s Division I softball game between Cumberland and Coventry came down to pitching, which, given the way the early innings played out, was somewhat unexpected.

After combining for ten runs through the first four frames, the Oakers and Clippers found themselves locked in a pitchers’ dual featuring a pair of relievers: Juliana Jenkins of the visitors and Mary McGovern of the home team.

McGovern would be the one to come out on top in the end, delivering seven shutout innings inside the circle for Coventry as part of a 10-inning, 6-5 victory capped by a Leah Lapham walk-off sacrifice fly.

“Great game,”” Clipper head coach Martin Crowley said following the nearly three-hour long affair that saw the Oakers battle their way back from an early 5-0 deficit.

“They got the run home when they needed to,” he said of a bottom of the 10th inning in which Coventry successfully capitalized on the go-ahead run starting at second base, something his own team was not.

Ava Hawley, who tied the score up, 5-5 on an RBI triple in the fourth, advanced from second to third on a sacrifice bunt by Gabrielle Fennessey, setting the table for Lapham who drove a pitch deep enough to left field so that Allie Casavant was unable to throw out Hawley as she sprinted home.

The Clippers began the afternoon in promising fashion, plating three runs in the top of the first inning against Coventry ace Sage Soares, who is back with the Oakers after playing last season with an AAU squad, but Cumberland starter Jillian Ryone couldn’t hold the lead, ultimately lending way to Jenkins who pitched the fourth inning onward.