McLean Little League Girls Win State Championship

McLean Little League shared this play-by-play of last week's state championship game.

In a very exciting championship game today Mclean outlasted a tough team from Essex 10 - 8.  

Both teams won their semi-final games earlier in the day and under very humid conditions had to come back for a 3pm. championship game.

The Essex team was able to save 6 innings for their number 1 pitcher while we had 4 innings remaining for our #1. Essex had a very strong pitcher (about 54 mph) who gave up only 4 runs in the tournament in 16 innings of pitching coming into our game. 

We got off to a great start in the top of the first inning with a leadoff single by Annie Ferguson, a sacrifice by Grace Chambers and then Bella Norton got on base courtesy of an error by the Essex shortstop. Sabrina Sanchez tripled in two runs and scored on a fielders choice off the bat of Anna Harris.  We entered the bottom of the 1st up 3 - 0.

Essex answered with 2 runs in the bottom of the 1st and then added 4 more runs in the bottom of the 2nd after 2 were out. Erin Stuver pitched well for us but Essex benefited from a few seeing eye hits and then two hits down each of the lines with two strike counts.

We entered the top of the 3rd - down 6 - 3. We just kept out bats alive. Samatha Stacey led off the inning with a single followed by a single by Bella Norton,  another double by Sabrina Sanchez, and three straight singles by Anna Harris, Zoe Dobson and Victoria Bergeron, giving us a one run lead.

Nicole Wooldridge laid down a sacrifice bunt scoring another run and then Lucy Mulligan's bunt single brought in another one. We entered the bottom of the 3rd with a 9 - 6 lead and our number 1 pitcher Sabrina Sanchez coming on the pitch. Sabrina held the Essex batters in check over the next three innings although a very tight strike zone made things a lot harder than normal. In the top of the 6th we scored another run after Annie Ferguson reached on an error and Bella Norton singled.

Sabrina Sanchez hit a long fly to the fence that was caught but our runner scored on the tag up.

We entered the bottom of the 6th up 10 - 6.   At that point the strike zone got even smaller. With one out the Essex team scored two runs with a walk and 2 singles and some overthrows from our fielders. Things were getting a little tense. Anna Harris then made one of the plays of the game - stretching her full 5' 11'' frame with a full split to to make a bang bang out at first on a slow roller to Allie Clarke. This settled the team down and Sabrina struck out the last batter to seal the victory.  

 We are now off to Warner Robbins Little league in Geogia for the Southern Region tournament. Our first game is on Thursday July 28 at 7:00 PM vs. South Carolina.    

Reprinted by permission of McLean Little League