DERRY, N.H. — “Get ahead, stay ahead.”
You will hear coaches scream it from dugouts to their pitchers at every level of ball from coast to coast.
In the premier regular-season softball collision in New Hampshire on Friday, it proved to be the difference as Pinkerton Academy’s Julia Caruso outdueled Londonderry’s Elisabeth Kearney, 4-0. The game was a rematch of the 2025 Division I state championship game, won by Kearney and the Lancers.
Caruso struck out 12 Lancers, walking just one, in the dominant one-hitter. Only one Londonderry runner reached second in a stifling performance.
“I was really focused on the accuracy of all our pitches, setting up my other pitches using my spins, ” said the Penn State-bound junior, who spent the entire afternoon getting ahead in favorable counts (0-2, 1-2) before putting hitters away. “My rise ball was working. They were swinging and missing that a lot. And my curve ball paired with my off-speed curve was working, too.”
Conversely, the Astros made the Stonehill-bound Kearney, New Hampshire’s 2025 Gatorade Player of the Year work overtime.
Pinkerton was selective and didn’t chase, forcing Kearney to throw 141 pitches in six innings.
“We worked on hitting the last two days … disciplined hitting. I had the pitching machine set up 24 feet from the plate, and we went through two rounds of it,” said Astros coach Tom Wall. “That’s how disciplined we were. They bought into it. And it paid off today.”
Kearney struck out 13 and walked six, but the Pinkerton preparation and the strategy proved to be just enough.
Pinkerton struck for the only run Caruso would need in the bottom of the second when Mia Marshall worked a walk and moved up on Rileigh Michaud’s perfect sacrifice bunt. With two outs – facing a two-strike count – sophomore Samantha Harrington lashed a single to plate Marshall for a 1-0 lead.
Then in the third, Marshall drew a bases loaded walk to make it 2-0.
With Caruso dealing and Astros third baseman Jaylen Pond flashing some serious leather, the outcome was pretty much inevitable.
Mollie Wheale (double) and Nalia Hilton added RBI hits in the sixth to close out the scoring.
Now 10-1 after suffering its lone loss of the year on Wednesday at Winnacunnet, Pinkerton now sits alone at the top of the crowded Division I standings.
Londonderry and Merrimack are 9-2, with Salem and Windham both at 8-2.