Ferri Turns in Strong Effort in 2-0 Shutout

The Winthrop High softball team put together what head coach Dave Guffey termed his team’s “most consistent effort for a full seven innings this season” to earn a 2-0 decision over Beverly in a well played contest on the local field Monday afternoon.

Lady Viking hurler Alex Ferri turned in an immense effort on the mound, going all seven innings and allowing only three hits while fanning 12 Lady Panthers and walking only five.

Winthrop scored what would prove to be the only runs of the contest in the bottom of the first frame when walks to Liana Ferullo and Haley Benson, an infield hit by Andrea Martucci, and a ground out by Alyssa Moore pushed  two Lady Viking runs across the plate.

From there, Ferri and her Beverly counterpart took over and kept their opponents’ bats in check.

Winthrop only had four more base runners the rest of the game, while Beverly had its lead off hitter reach base in five of the seven innings, but a combination of tough pitching by Ferri and a staunch defense behind her prevented the Lady Panthers from advancing a runner past second all game.

Friday’s affair with Revere proved to be another story, however. After Revere grabbed a 1-0 edge in the top of the first, Taylor Brown belted a round tripper over the fence, also bringing in Liana Ferullo, who had opened the inning with a base hit, to give the Lady Vikings a 2-1 advantage.

Revere, which came into the contest riding a four game winning streak,  responded with four markers in the second, but Winthrop got back three of those in the third to make it a 6-5 ballgame.

However, Revere put up four more tallies on the scoreboard, one in the fifth and three in the sixth, to come away with a 10-5 victory. Some shaky Winthrop fielding aided in the Revere rallies. The final box score showed that the Lady Vikings banged out 11 hits, but five errors proved costly in allowing six unearned Revere runs to cross the plate.

The leading hitters for Winthrop at this stage of the season are Ferullo with a .395 batting average, 10 runs scored, and seven RBI; Martucci with a .350 BA, five runs scored, and eight RBI, and Brown with a .333 BA, nine runs scored, and 11 RBI.

Guffey and his crew hit the road to Lynn Classical yesterday (Wednesday) and travel to Salem Friday before returning home to host Lynn English Monday and Marblehead next Wednesday.