By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

RESERVE – Riverside coach Kristy Hebert believes in preparing her team for its ultimate goals by stacking the regular season deck with formidable foes. 2010 is no different.

After opening its season with a 4-0 loss on Monday to Vandebilt Catholic, Class 2A Riverside saw a 1-0 lead slip away on Thursday as visiting Dominican scored three runs in the final two innings to capture a 4-1 non-district win.

Dominican (1-0) was the sixth-seed in last year’s Class 5A playoffs. Vandebilt Catholic was the fifth seed in the 4A postseason.

“I told the kids to keep their heads up,” said Hebert. “We were very much in both of these games. Today we had our chances to win. But these games are just going to make us better.”

Dominican’s Ginger Lonergan (1-0) struck out three batters and allowed one earned run on her way to the complete game victory.

Destin Vicknair (0-1) struck out four and allowed two earned runs for the Rebels (0-2).

After two scoreless innings, Riverside made the first impact on the scoreboard after Taylor Terrio led off the bottom of the third with a bunt single, barely beating a Dominican throw. She stole second, setting up Katie Bailey’s RBI double when Bailey drove a Lonergan pitch into deep centerfield.

Riverside led 1-0, but it would be fleeting. Melissa Hahn led off the fourth with her own double to deep centerfield. Vicknair retired the next two batters, but Hahn advanced to third on a grounder and a steal. Amalie Greco slapped a grounder to the left side of the infield and beat the throw to first, bringing Hahn home to tie the game.

“We were successful in manufacturing runs when we needed to, and that’s something we haven’t always had a great deal of success doing,” said Dominican coach Dawn Benoit.

The Rebels got a runner on base in each of the next two innings but could not bring home a run.

In the sixth, Dominican broke loose. With one out, Hahn reached on a throwing error, then Rebecca Shick walked. Hahn was thrown out at third on a grounder. But Greco got on via Riverside’s second fielding error of the inning, and with the bases loaded Megan Savoie dumped a single into shallow center field to bring home two runs.

“We should have been out of that inning still tied at one,” said Hebert. “We hurt ourselves there.”

Dominican tacked on one more in the seventh. Lonergan retired the last eight Rebel batters of the game.