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Sweeney’s HR sends Mooney to regional
By tom williams
beaver township
A clutch bases-loaded infield hit by a freshman non-starter and line-drive homer by a senior lifted the Cardinal Mooney High School softball team to its first district championship since 2005.
Bridget Sweeney led off the ninth inning of Friday’s Division III district final at South Range High School by blasting a Marissa McDonough pitch over the left-field fence. The Cardinals added another run with three more hits for the 3-1 victory over Columbiana.
The only one surprised about how far her hit went was Sweeney, the Cardinals’ shortstop.
“Oh no, I thought it was caught, for sure,” said Sweeney, then adding, “it felt good.”
Kelly Williams then singled and was sacrificed to second base by Adrianna Popovich. She took third on Brooke Chandler’s hit and came home on freshman Katie Perry’s second straight hit.
“It’s really exciting, it’s always good to be an underdog,” said Williams after the four-seed Cardinals (18-6) knocked off top seed South Range and two-seed Columbiana. “There’s not as much pressure or expectations.
“We showed them that maybe we deserved to be [seeded] a little higher.”
The Clippers (24-2) came so close to earning their first district crown since 2011. McDonough took a two-hitter into the seventh inning nursing a 1-0 lead.
Kayla Rutherford singled for her second hit of the game. An out later, Williams walked. An out later, Chandler’s infield single loaded the bases, bringing Perry to the plate.
She twice fouled off two-strike pitches and with the count 2-2 she beat out an infield single, sending pinch-runner Gia DiFabio home to tie the game.
Clippers first baseman Morgan Highley alertly fired the ball to catcher Alexis Cross, who tagged out Williams to end the inning.
“It was very close,” the junior catcher said. “I knew we could not give up any more runs if we wanted to have a chance so I just put my body out there and hoped I could get her before she touched the plate.”
Cross, McDonough and Kennedy Fullum also played on the Clippers basketball team. Their teams posted a combined record of 49-3.
“She pitched really hard,” said Cross of McDonough. “She did the best she could — she shut them down for eight innings. You can’t ask for much more than that.”
Clippers coach Jerry Beltempo agreed.
“Marisa did fine,” Beltempo said. “We left too many people on base. And they are a good team.”
The win was Mooney head coach Mark Rinehart’s 396th.
“It’s exhilarating,” Rinehart said. “I feel we had the toughest district around. We had to beat the five, the one and the two [seeds]. Our kids certainly earned it.
“Columbiana played an outstanding game — we were down to one strike. [Perry] had an outstanding at-bat in the seventh inning.”
Rutherford struck out 10 and walked one.
Sweeney credited McDonough for “a really good riseball, I fell for it a couple of times.”
She’s not surprised the Cardinals won.
“This is the best softball team I’ve ever played on at Cardinal Mooney and I’m really proud to be a part of it,” Sweeney said. “I wasn’t ready to end my season today.
“I’ve never been so happy to win a game in my whole life. And to win it for Cardinal Mooney and to represent our Catholic schools in this region really is amazing.”