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Cantral's playoff hopes take step up

LAWRENCE — It's been a struggle for the inexperienced Central Catholic softball team, which has been battling uphill to make the state tournament.

But the Raiders took a huge step toward qualifying Monday with an impressive 6-2 victory over Methuen, improving to  8-8 with four games still to play.

"We're not taking anything for granted — anything can happen — but this was a big win against a good team that we respect a lot," said Central coach Stacy Ciccolo. "We've been able to put together some good hitting with defense and pitching, which we hadn't been doing."

Central used the long ball against the Rangers as Sara Janco had a two-run homer in the first, Abby Latham smacked a solo shot in the third and Lydia Gonzalez had a two-run blast in the sixth. It was Latham's second home run in two games and Gonzalez's first career home run.

Sophomore pitcher Abby Jankowski scattered seven hits and had six strikeouts to pick up the win for the Raiders.

"What she did well was really buckle down with runners on base," said Ciccolo. "They had a lot of runners on base."

For Methuen (16-3), which has now lost two of its last three, Taylor Cassidy was 3 for 3 and Steph Tardugno had an RBI and scored a run.