By Kellyanne Mahoney

It's the first practice after their first unlikely victory, but the girls at Monsignor Ryan Memorial must continue to brace for a forfeit. They have a history of "scroungin' for players," according to one member of their high school softball team and this season seems no different in that respect.

They haven't had to pull any students out of detention yet -as they had in the past - but they've only played one game so far this year. Their coach, Dick Finnegan, is worried that his bare-bones roster could fall short for the next game, this being April vacation week.

"Every year, 28 girls sign up, but then 11 or 12 actually show up for the games," says the former State representative from Savin Hill, who has coached the team for the last five years or so.

The team itself subscribes to a guarded optimism about this season's prospects. A fresh enthusiasm abounds.

"This year's team is more joyful," Karla Jimenez, a junior from Milton, attests as the other girls warm up. At the end of their hour-and-a-half-long practice, the girls huddle around Finnegan as he doles out applications from this year's crop of no-shows. Reading aloud the names, he asks the girls who knows who, and who can call to ask them to come out for Thursday's game.

One potential player "has prior engagements," decides the giggling jury, anxious to be dismissed. Another is "too tired," says the team's catcher, Helen Baker.

"I'm serious, Dick," she says stone-faced about a girl who had thought the first practice was exhausting. Not amused, he glares at her as he crumples up the sheet of paper.

"We need ball players," he barks back. "We have a wind under us now… Tell them we won our first game 19 to zero," he says.

"I will if you don't yell at my face," says Kasey Ryan, a sophomore.

When he assigns her a name, she protests.

"You want me to call a senior?"

"We're always looking for that ninth player," the softball veteran - who has coached for "about 45 years" - later muses, before hopping the fence along the Southeast Expressway that borders MRM's home field, McConnell Park in Savin Hill.

"We're not a wealthy team," he calls back, hunching over to rescue the day's foul balls.

As their scheduled practice time approaches, Finnegan beckons a few girls chatting with a couple of boys by the bleachers from "the land of matrimony."

Mount Alvernia "gave you the game the other day," he informs them.

Freshman twins Annie and Ashley Butts are not convinced.

"This team has lots of talented people… When we tied that game, we really set our point… We have a bad reputation… Other people, they laugh at MRM, they say: 'They stink at sports.' But this year everyone hits… We have so much spirit. We're gonna tear it up… We hit two homeruns each last game,'' they volley back and forth.

Aside, Finnegan also mentions the twins' double homers proudly. He then goes on to more loudly suggest that Ashley run out into traffic to pick up balls sacrificed to the adjacent highway. Already keen to his brand of humor, she fires back from third base: "I'm not willing to risk my life for this team."

"Your life?" he asks. "This is it! You have no life. Forget your prom. This is it!" In light of current events, to an onlooker, this comment seems to expose another layer of the team dynamic.

Chances are the majority of these girls won't be able to celebrate the prom with their respective classes as seniors. What they face now is a few dozen innings together, win or lose, before they disband for good at the end of May. In January, the Archdiocese of Boston announced its plan to close the 85-year-old brick school on Mayhew Street due to "rising costs, changing demographics and declining student enrollments." This was after the pastor of St. Margaret's Church, which oversees MRM, was forced to choose between the all-girls' Catholic high school &emdash; the second to last of its kind in the city &emdash; and the parish's grammar school.

In the end, the Rev. Nicholas C. Ciccone Jr. told a tearful assembly - well attended by the school's 140 students, a number that has declined from 210 in six years - that they would be the ones deprived. While he conceded it seemed a senseless decision to have to make, he reasoned that at their age, they were better equipped to handle the disruption.

"(They) told the press before they told us. Everyone was like, 'Share your feelings, your school is closing.' I was like, 'I don't really want to,'" recalled Elise Rae, a sophomore, who in the past few months has become a reluctant spokesperson for the school. With fingers splinted from a sprain in the first game, she spends most of the practice on the sidelines.

She likens MRM's last days to a sort of "party."

"It's a small school. You know everyone's name. They know you. You don't mind being at school." She says that although she's happy it's the first day of vacation, she misses MRM already. She's also quick to point out that softball isn't the only recreation the school has to offer.

Soccer. Basketball. R&B Choir. Musical theory. Drama. Debate.

Many of the same girls have gone out for new activities recently for the sake of spending more precious time together. Amanda Choate, a sophomore originally from Quincy, had never played softball before. "We all want to stay together," Amanda says, having joined the team for this reason.

"Everyone's attitude has changed," Elise says, comparing the mood of her current teammates to that of the soccer team's just a few months ago.

Amanda is the first to mention Elizabeth Seton Academy. Although she's already registered for next year at Mount St. Joseph in Brighton - the last all-girls Catholic high school to survive in Boston -she expresses hope for MRM to make a last minute comeback.

In March, a panel of MRM students, parents and alumnae staged a rally at the Boston Teacher's Union Hall to garner support for the establishment of a new, independent, Catholic all-girls high school - to be renamed Elizabeth Seton Academy - in one of the surrounding neighborhoods. In order to do so, they said, the group would not only have to come up with close to a million dollars in a very short time, but also secure a building by this month.

Still, Kasey says the students received a letter about two weeks ago from the board declaring the goal was not unattainable. Kasey and Elise both spoke at the rally. Kasey has also registered at Mount St. Joseph for the fall, but she seems at least partially convinced there remains a chance for Elizabeth Seton, which she describes as "MRM… The sequel."

"(At the rally,) these old ladies came out with actual plans. With a layout of rooms and everything," she says.

A parade of representatives from other schools, invited to court the girls for September, has passed through MRM's halls the past couple of months. Some of the girls on the team express apprehension about the sincerity of their welcome.

Karla says she has decided on Trinity Catholic in Newton, a school run by Our Lady Help of Christians Parish that serves mostly low-income students from Boston. She says it was because they were the only ones who seemed to be saying: "'We want you here.'"

Ruth Bello, a sophomore raised in the Dominican Republic, says she may return to public school. When she emigrated to the U.S. in the sixth grade, her mother had wanted to send her to a Catholic school. But she entered public school instead because her parish grammar school could not offer her the English as a Second Language program she required.

A huge Manny Ramirez fan, she says she joined the team because she "actually like(s) softball," which doesn't appear to be a necessary prerequisite.

Though her dedication seems above average - even her family enjoys coming to watch her play- like most others on the team, she must balance a job with her softball commitments. Employed at a physical therapy office, she plans to "miss one game, miss one day of work" to ration out the season.

As she hustles back to practice, Finnegan is yelling at Karla, who just bobbled a play, to "Go back to Milton!" Many of the girls credit Karla with the catch that saved their first game.

"Stop being prejudiced against Milton!" one girl hollers back. Shortly after, Kasey tells Finnegan he pitches "like a woman."

Finnegan often tells the girls his grandmother runs faster than them, "and she's dead."

"Dick has an odd way of showing appreciation," Amanda says.

"It's up to your teammates to point out when you're doing right," Elise agrees.

 Game day (last Thursday) is cold and drizzly, but Finnegan, dressed in a teal windbreaker, baseball cap and green nylon pants, concludes, "It's getting warmer." As he paces the baselines of their home field, he regularly pulls a tattered tissue from his front pocket. When Helen, crouched behind home plate, asks him for an extra Kleenex, he responds with an exaggerated snort, pretending to blow his nose in his hand. "Go like this! Use your glove." he shouts.

Finnegan, whose lineup is written on a folded-up piece of notebook paper entrusts the other team, St. Clement's of Somerville, to keep the book.

Sade Douglas of Hyde Park, a junior, rushes in late after the first inning. Luckily, the girls had enough players to start. The first time Finnegan walks by her, as she fastens her cleats at the bench, she smiles but he chooses not to acknowledge her. When he comes by again, he remarks, "Oh, are you here?" She blames the bus for her tardiness. The next inning he shuttles her out to first base, pulling Kasey on to the bench.

The sun breaks in briefly, as does the burnt smell of an overheated engine from the expressway. Many of the girls, dressed in crisp crimson and gold uniforms, wear hoods pulled over their visors to ward off the dampness. Most of their handful of fans has departed by the fifth inning. Finnegan tells them that the umpire wants to go home too, whenever the girls fail to swing at good pitches.

"He's not gonna give you a break," Finnegan says.

The score remains close throughout most of the game, although it is never precisely certain on the MRM bench. When things fall apart in the sixth, Finnegan tells the girls they're down six or seven runs.

"Don't wait until the seventh inning. Step into it and cream it. We can't depend on getting 10 runs every inning," Finnegan lectures.

"Why does life hate us so much?" Elise, alone at the end of the bench, says aloud to herself. She has returned to play third base, her fingers still bandaged.

One girl pleadingly remarks that she really wants to win this game, as if they're taking a vote. The rest of the girls pray for singles.

In the seventh, their prayers seem to be answered as Sade rips a homer. But the rally never gains footing. Next at bat, Elise turns to the dugout to apologize for swinging at a bad pitch. "That was too high. I'm sorry," she tells her team.

They lose it 11 to 9. "That was the best game I never played," Kasey declares packing up her things.

Thinking they only lost by a single run, Sade asks cheerily, "By one? That's mad good for us."

As the girls gather to pose for a team photo, Finnegan orders them to tuck in their shirts and take off their hoods. The girls manage to tug him into the picture with some effort.

"Two runs. That's beautiful," he says after the game. He's especially happy with the performance of the girls he worked the hardest. He's pleased with the team photo too and hopes it makes it in for the school's final yearbook.

"I used to bring down a guy from the fire department every year to take a picture of the girls," he remembers.

He recalls a season "three or four years ago," when he didn't think he could round up enough players. He wrote a poem about it, "These 15."

He says it went on about how the team shrinks each year from 30 to 25 to that small number of girls you can really count on.

It ended with "something like, but for these 15, MRM will never know what they did for softball." He claims his computer somehow ate his original version.

"But they all got a copy," he says assuredly.

Special thanks to photographer Norman Reynolds.