Blair softball routs Kennedy

MAY 8, BLAZER FIELD—

Blair's only loss of the season seemed a distant memory after tonight's 12-0 victory over a struggling Kennedy team. Blair won again by a mercy rule decision, leading by more than 10 runs after the first five innings. This game was seen as mostly a tune-up for the team's final game against Poolesville, a team with a matching 14-1 record.

Blair played many traditional reserve players tonight, due to the fact that Kennedy was such a weak opponent and due to the fact that several players will not be making the Poolesville game on-time due to AP testing. Senior Sara Pierce, and juniors Allison Rubin and Annie Dennenberg will all be late to the game. "We wanted to keep all our players sharp and make sure they will be ready for Wednesday," said Head Coach Louis Hoelman.

Today's game helped the team establish a certain confidence in the starters and the reserves. "We were able to come out today and achieve the goals we set earlier, to space our runs throughout the game, and to stay focused and stick to playing our game," said junior Anna Szapiro.

Blair scored four runs in the first inning, coming out in force, as they have in almost every game this year. The difference today was that Blair was able to continue scoring throughout the other four remaining innings, building on their lead, and making it almost impossible for Kennedy to fight back. "We almost always start strong, but then we fall off before getting back in it late in the game. It was nice to see us spread out our runs today," said Szapiro.

Blair played a good defensive game as well. "We really only had one error, and that was on the first play of the game and people were out of position," said Szapiro. Blair's pitching was also on point tonight, with Dennenberg pitching 5 shut-out innings.

For the team this game was still seen as mostly a warm up for their final game of the season against Poolesville. Blair was "really loose tonight. We came out relaxed and played well," said Hoelman. Hoelman was very pleased by the teams play tonight, especially that of the reserves.

"Tonight we stepped it up," said junior Claire Lieberman. "We've realized that we can lose and that we need to put our heart into every game."

Blair's final game of the season will be May 10 at 5:15 p.m., as the team travels to Poolesville.