By STEPHEN MARTELLUCCI
LYNNFIELD — Last season, the Lynnfield High softball team reached the MIAA Division 4 state tournament under second-year head coach Hector Longo. The Pioneers lost at home to Millbury, 6-5, in eight innings in the opening round.
With that defeat, they finished at 8-13 overall. In the Cape Ann League, they were 6-10 as they ended up in third place in the CAL Kinney Division.
Three seniors from that team, Ava Gamache, Catie Kampersal and Sophia Brown, graduated.
When spring practice opened on March 17, Longo welcomed back eight veterans.
Three of those veterans are this year’s tri-captains: Morgan Hubbard (shortstop), Kaila George (outfielder) and Lily Williams (catcher).
Hubbard, who was a Cape Ann League First-Team All-Star last year and George are seniors while Williams is a junior.
The other returning starters from last year are senior Libby Considine (second and third base), senior Julia Corrente (first and third base) and junior Olivia Kelter (second and third base).
“We do have a nice core of six returning starters,” said Longo.
Sophomore Chloe McEwen, (utility) and junior Gia Gagnon (pitcher) are the two other returners.
Gagnon was 1-2 in the circle with a 5.25 earned-run average and 24 strikeouts in 30.2 innings of work.
“We’re going to need her to be more efficient, throwing strikes,” said Longo. “If she does that and stays ahead of hitters, she will keep us in a lot of ball games.”
It has been a busy preseason for the team as they have played four scrimmages and two mini-scrimmages as they have faced Danvers, Peabody, Gloucester and Masconomet in full scrimmages and Andover and Melrose in mini-scrimmages.
All of those games were at home with Lynnfield having the field-turf surface.
The Pioneers will play a 20-game regular-season schedule with 16 CAL contests as they will play the Kinney schools twice and the Baker schools once.
Lynnfield will play four non-league games this season as they will face Lowell Catholic twice along with Boston Latin Academy and Wakefield.
Longo feels that Triton, the defending CAL Kinney champions are still the team to beat this season. He also says that North Reading is a solid contender.
“Our goal is to be able to compete for the (Kinney) title,” said Longo. “Our pitching and defense looked good in the preseason but we have to cut down on our strikeouts from last year and put the ball in play more.”
Lynnfield will open the 2025 campaign on Monday, April 7 as they host Triton at 4:30 p.m.