WINSLOW — The Winslow High School softball team gave Paige Trask an early lead. Then she pulled off one escape after another to make sure it held up.

With Trask leading the way in the circle, the Black Raiders jumped ahead and never looked back, defeating Lawrence 5-1 in a Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference matchup — and a rematch of last Thursday’s contest, a 7-5 Lawrence victory.

“We just played better defensively,” coach Steve Bodge said. “We made too many errors last week, gave up too many baserunners. This week we made some plays. It looks a lot different when you make some plays versus when you don’t.”

With the quick turnaround, the first game was fresh in the Black Raiders’ minds as they got ready for the second.

“We definitely wanted revenge,” Trask said.

She helped make sure it would happen, striking out eight in seven innings, while also picking up an RBI. Natalie Greene singled and scored twice, while Alexa Petrovic and Bailey Robbins had RBI doubles and Sarah Guimond singled in another run.

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Megan Griffith had three hits and drove in the only run for the Bulldogs (5-5), while Haley Holt had two hits, including a double, and Megan Curtis had two singles.

“What I said to my kids was Winslow got the extra hit,” coach Joey Marcoux said. “We got runners all over the place, we couldn’t get that one extra hit that caused the run to cross the plate. You get the extra hit … and all of a sudden it’s a 4-2 ballgame, 4-3, and the game plays out differently.”

ESCAPING TROUBLE: Indeed, Lawrence had plenty of chances against Trask. But while the junior wasn’t dominant, she proved plenty resilient.

Staked to a 2-0 lead after the first inning and 4-0 advantage after two, Trask had to fend off frequent Lawrence threats, with the Bulldogs getting runners in scoring position in each of the first three innings and five of seven. On nearly every occasion, however, Trask came up with the strikeout, pop-up or groundout necessary to escape unscathed. She left runners on second and third in the first, got back-to-back punchouts to leave two on in the second, and got a strikeout to leave the bases loaded in the third.

“You’ve just got to keep cool. We have a good defense,” she said. “As coach always says, ‘Just rock and fire, do your thing.’ I guess that’s what I’ve got to go with.”

That defense helped leave two on in the sixth, with Guimond making a long throw to nab Cassie Martin on a grounder deep into the hole at shortstop.

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“I think they were pretty positive. I was pleased with their attitudes today,” said Marcoux, whose team threatened a final time in the seventh when Curtis and Holt led off with a single and double, respectively, but were stranded by three straight outs. “They seemed like they were still into it every single inning, and it showed. We kept putting runners on base every single inning, we just couldn’t seem to muscle that extra one more knock.”

EARLY SUPPORT: Winslow did all its necessary damage early.

After Guimond reached on an error leading off the bottom of the first and Greene got on via fielder’s choice, Robbins ripped a double to left that scored Robbins and made it 1-0. Greene went to third, then came home on Trask’s grounder to short to make it 2-0.

The Black Raiders struck again in the second. Ward was hit by a pitch, and Petrovic ripped a hard ground ball down the third-base line for an RBI double. After advancing on a groundout, Petrovic came home when Guimond dropped a two-out single to shallow right.

“(That’s a) veteran team here, I’ve got eight seniors in the lineup,” Bodge said. “We can catch up to a lot of pitches, and we hit it pretty hard (Monday).”

The teams then traded runs. Lawrence got one back in the third when Griffith’s infield single scored Holt, but Winslow got the lead back to four in the fifth when Greene singled and scored on Broghan Gagnon’s two-out single.

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“They got up on us last time,” he said. “We definitely had a plan to get up, and it worked out well.”

Drew Bonifant — 621-5638

dbonifant@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @dbonifantMTM


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