Tide softball prevails past visiting Revere to secure sixth straight win

By Joe McConnell

The Everett High School softball team (6-1) defeated three more opponents during school vacation week to remain perfect on the season until they faced host Medford on April 22. Leading up to the Medford contest, the Tide girls were all over non-league O’Bryant (16-8), before taking down Greater Boston League (GBL) rivals Somerville (12-1) and Revere (16-7).

On April 12 at Madison Park, coach Stacy Poste-Schiavo’s team doubled up O’Bryant to kick off April vacation on a successful note.

Freshman pitcher Mia Allen started the game against O’Bryant before Peyton Warren made a triumphant return after taking a line shot off her elbow against Lynn English. Allen pitched one complete inning. During her stint in the circle, she walked seven that led to seven runs in the second. She ended up allowing no hits, while fanning two. Warren then came in to settle things down, yielding just two walks, while issuing no hits that resulted in zero earned runs over three innings. She also whiffed two. The game was called after four.

Olivia Dresser ignited the offense in the first inning with a one-out double. She moved to third on a passed ball, before coming home on a hard hit single to left by Ashley Seward. But O’Bryant tied up the proceedings in the home half of the first.

The Tide girls broke the game wide open in the second with 13 runs. Emilia Maria-Babcock and Allen led off the frame with walks. They moved up into scoring position on a passed ball. Arabella Cvitkusic then reached on an infield single to load the bases. Maria-Babcock broke the tie by scoring on a wild pitch. Kassidy Rivera then reloaded the bases with a walk for Emma Longmore, who doubled home two. Dresser kept up the offensive surge with a run producing single. Seward then doubled home Longmore, before Gianna Masucci also came through with a double that produced two more runs. Maria-Babcock, up again for the second time in the inning, singled home Masucci. Allen and Cvitkusic followed respectively with a single and a walk to load the bases again for Longmore, who singled in two more, before Dresser blasted a three-run homerun to close out the uprising.

But O’Bryant got seven of those runs back, mainly as a result of free passes in the bottom half of the second.

After Bryanna Mason singled in the third, Masucci belted an apparent inside-the-park homerun, but was thrown out at the plate after Mason scored the team’s 15th run.

In the fourth, Alessandra Foster singled, and eventually scored the final run of the game on another base hit.

Somerville was next up for the Tide on Patriots Day at Glendale Park, where the home team recorded its fifth win of the season in as many games.

Warren pitched five innings against the Highlanders, before the game was called, because of the mercy rule. She ended up striking out five, while allowing two walks and two hits.

The Everett offense got going right away in the first with two runs. Longmore started it off with a double, followed by a single from Dresser. Longmore, now on third, soon came home on a passed ball. Dresser eventually went to third on a passed ball, before coming home on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Seward.

Somerville trimmed the deficit in half with one in the second. But in the third, Everett widened the gap with two more. After Seward singled, Masucci connected on a two-run homer to give her mates a 4-1 advantage.

The Tide broke it open in the fourth with six more runs. Cvitkusic got it started by reaching first on a dropped third strike, and she eventually came all the way around to score the first run of the inning. Later on in the frame, Seward singled in two more. Masucci was credited with a sacrifice fly to account for another run. Maria-Babcock tripled in a run, and Warren then singled her home, and all of a sudden, the locals were enjoying a 10-1 lead.

The home team scored twice more in the fifth to end the game quickly via the mercy rule.

Everett then continued the onslaught with a 16-7 win over visiting Revere. It was the team’s sixth straight victory. Warren went all seven innings, giving up seven hits, two walks and six earned runs. She whiffed six.

“Revere has always had a great hitting team, and we saw that right away in this game,” said Poste-Schiavo. “One of our strengths is defense, so we needed to make those plays to keep Revere off the bases. Our bats came alive in the second and third innings, but we knew it wasn’t enough, because of Revere’s comeback ability.”

After Revere took a 1-0 lead after one, the Tide wiped it out with six in the second. With the bases loaded, Longmore singled in two. Dresser doubled in a run. Seward then doubled home Dresser. Maria-Babcock knocked in the final two runs of the inning with a single.

The Tide extended the lead with seven more runs in the third. Their first two runs came home on a Revere throwing error, before Seward doubled home two more. She then scored on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Mason. Maria-Babcock singled in the final run of the inning.

But Revere refused to give up, scoring six in the fourth, but still trailed by six, 13-7.

The Tide got two back in the home half on a two-run blast by Dresser. It was the freshman’s third round tripper of the year.

The Everett girls accounted for their final run of the game in the fifth on a single by Jayla Davila.

The Everett girls have since traveled to Medford on April 22, where its six-game winning streak came to an end at the hands of the host Mustangs, 5-2. More on this game in next week’s Everett Advocate. They then hosted Malden on April 24 after press deadline, before playing them again in a rematch at Malden’s Callahan Park later today (April 26), starting at 4 p.m.