The North Andover softball team will not be defending their Division 2 North crown, when they were upset by Belmont in the first round of the state tournament, 12-0 May 29.
The Knights started strong, with starting pitcher Jess Lambert holding them scoreless until the sixth, when the number 13 ranked Marauders scorched the number four Knights for 10 unearned runs.
Belmont finished the Middlesex League season with a solid 11-9 record. The Marauders have ace junior pitcher Kayla Hoyer, who led all EMass hurlers with 232 strikeouts during the regular season, to set the tone.
As a result of her presence on the mound, the Knights were limited to only two hits. Hoyer had nine strikeouts.
Candace Waldie and Krissy Whitley were the only Knights to get hits off Hoyer, both delivering sharp singles to center.
Lambert allowed nine hits and two earned runs in six innings. Nicole Jones pitched the final two innings and yielded no runs.
“We ran into a tough Middlesex team in Belmont,” said head coach Brian Martin. “We made some fantastic defensive players early on to keep the game close, but our bats never woke up.”
While disappointed they could not defend their crown the Knights accomplished one goal: winning a second consecutive Cape Ann League title.
“I believe we got the most out of our athletes, and I feel we had a very successful season,” said Martin.
The Knights will be graduating four, including captains Alison McCarthy, Nicole Jones and Kristin O’Connor and Kim Pierce. McCarthy will be playing both softball and field hockey at Springfield College; Jones and Pierce will be studying at Salem State College; and O’Connor will be attending UMass/Amherst, where she was accepted into the school’s honors program.
The Knights will have a solid foundation to build on for next season, including Whitley, Waldie and Lambert.

wickedlocal.com

• Police responded to a complaint of a domestic dispute at 48 Dublin Drive and arrested Christopher McGrath, 19, for malicious destruction of property exceeding $250.
• Shawn Hackett, 17, 147 Lothrup St., was arrested at Taunton High School for possession of a dangerous weapon (a knife) on school grounds, cops said.
• Police received a call from a woman on Prospect Street complaining that three male guests refused to leave her apartment. They arrested Richard Swanson, 20, 33 Sandpiper Lane, East Taunton, for possession with intent to distribute a Class B (cocaine) drug.
• Police charged Steven Perry, 53, 50 Washington St., with four counts of shoplifting after he was caught in the act in Trucchi’s Supermarket on Tremont Street.
• Janice Cavanaugh, 44, 47 Winthrop St., was arrested just before 7 p.m. in front of the Bank of America on High Street for offering sex for a fee and being a common nightwalker (third offense), police said.
• And at 7:30 p.m. cops likewise charged Carol Burnham, 55, 90 Oak St., with offering sex for a fee and being a common nightwalker (third offense).
Thank you for the abuse report. We will review the report and take appropriate action.

tauntongazette.com

NEW YORK: DaJuan Hawkins spent four months in jail for assault and thought he was a “nothing” destined for a life of street crime.
Today, the 17-year-old high school senior is heading for college and writing poetry.
Bobby Marchesi hung out with a tough group of Italian boys who clashed violently with black kids at his Brooklyn high school. Now, he is a lawyer in private practice.
What transformed Hawkins and Marchesi into confident, productive and compassionate human beings, they say, is Council For Unity.
Founded as a small anti-gang group in 1975, the council now claims to reach 100,000 people of all cultures in New York, Milwaukee, San Francisco and Vermont — and as far away as Nigeria and Moldova.
And its mission has expanded: The group recently published a book of student writings. It works with families and in correctional facilities. It is developing a public safety curriculum in partnership with police in Riverhead, Long Island.
The group's story begins with its founder, Bob De Sena, a one-time gang member and former English teacher at the once-troubled John Dewey High School, the same Brooklyn school Marchesi attended.
De Sena said he turned his life around because someone gave him a second chance. He wants the Council For Unity to do the same for new generations of kids from broken homes and crime-ridden neighborhoods.
The group has a 33-year history of getting gang members together to talk, based on a message that when you bring everybody together, there is nobody left to fight.
At Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx, gang activity ceased altogether after the group's classes were introduced into the curriculum, principal Lisa Maffei Fuentes said. She said her school was on the city's most dangerous list three years ago.
“They've come to respect their home site, their school,” she said.

iht.com