11-0
LADY WHALERS IN LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
BY STEVE SHEPPARD INDEPENDENT SPORTS EDITOR
This is the fourteenth year that Chris Maury has been coaching the Whalers' softball team, and he's never seen anything like this before.

Not only were the Lady Whalers undefeated through Monday with an unsullied 11-0 record - "The best start I've ever had," Maury said - they ran their wins into the double digit column via an unprecedented no-hit sweep of New Testament Saturday afternoon.

That's right, back-to-back no-hit games.

Well, if you want to get technical, a no-hitter topped off by a perfect game, with Olivia Hull tossing the first gem and Grace Anne Tornovish completing the historic afternoon with perfection in the nightcap.

"That's a first, too," the coach noted. "Not only is it the first time we've had two kids pitch no-hitters on the same day, it's the first time we've had three no-hitters in a season," alluding to the no-hitter Jessica Guevera tossed against New England Christian Academy in April.

Oh, yes, they've already qualified for the postseason as well, thanks to last Thursday's 11-1 victory over Provincetown.

Yes, the season is rolling along quite nicely for the island softball nine. With each outing, the team seems to get better and better. "We improve each time out," the coach duly notes. "Alot of that comes from our practices that are a lot more competitive, and a lot more intense, than the games. Compared to our practices, the games actually become fun."

Looking at the record, and by the lopsided scores the team has benefited from so far, the girls are having a downright blast, all at the expense of their opponents. Against New Testament, for example, Nantucket rolled to a 13-0 win in the first game and a 16-0 romp in the second contest.

"Basically, they're a great group," Maury says. "They're very focused; that's evident by the plays they're making."

He pointed to two stellar defensive plays turned in by Shantel Hanniford and Maryanne Bradley during Tornovish's five-inning, sixstrikeout performance, and to the plays made on every ball hit during Hull's nine-strikeout extravaganza.

While this year's pitching performances have been record-setting, the offense is also a big part of the team's success. In Saturday's second game, for example, Molly Lentowski hit a single, double and a triple, knocked in four RBIs and scored three times. Bradley went 3 for 4, drove in two and scored twice, and Parinda Darden was 2 for 2 and also drove in a run and scored.

In the opening game, Hanniford, who went 3 for 5 against Provincetown, went 3 for 4 and scored a run, while Geuvara had two hits, two RBIs and three runs scored and Bradley had two hits and scored three runs.

"Our girls just hit very, very well," Maury said. "We can put a lineup out there from one to nine in the order that is going to make another team's pitcher work very hard."

With seven games to go before the postseason begins, Maury knows his team will retain the focus it has exhibited all season. "We take it one game at a time," he said, "although we're a step or two ahead of where I thought we'd be at this point in the season."

The schedule right now says the girls' next home game is next Monday against Sacred Heart, the same school the basketball team faced

in the state sectional finals. I