Saugus softball team defeated in preliminary playoff round

By Greg Phipps

Playing a Div. 3 preliminary-round playoff game at home last Thursday, the Saugus High School softball team got off to a fast start before falling by a 13-4 score to Bristol-Plymouth. The defeat gave the Sachems an 11-10 overall record to conclude the 2023 season. Saugus was seeded 31st in the tourney and tallied three times in the bottom of the first inning to build an early 3-1 lead against 34th-seeded Bristol-Plymouth. But the visitors produced 12 of the next 13 runs to pull away to the victory.

Kaitlyn Pugh, Devany Millerick and Ava Rogers each scored first-inning runs while Danica Schena and Sydney Deleidi drove two of those runs in. Maria Silva brought in Saugus’s fourth tally with an RBI single later in the contest. Pitching ace Taylor Deleidi got the start and threw well but the defense behind her struggled, as fielding errors cost Saugus. Abby Enwright pitched two scoreless innings of relief.

Head Coach Steve Almquist was pleased with the effort of his young team this spring. The Sachems had no senior players on this year’s squad. The entire roster will return in 2024.

“The future looks bright. If you asked me at the beginning of the year if we would’ve won the [Northeastern Conference Lynch Division], made the tournament again and hosted a tournament game, I would have been a little skeptical,” Almquist told the press after the playoff loss. “I’m proud of [the team], and they should be proud of themselves for the season they put together. No one expected us to be here.”

This season marked the seventh consecutive spring that Saugus softball has qualified for the postseason. It was also the second time in the past three years that the Sachems earned the conference’s Lynch Division crown.