Softball: Late Rally Sends Cougars to Region Finals

If Coach Ray Gordon has said it once, he's said it a thousand times: When Emily Corridon hits, the Cougars win.

And so it went in the Northern Region Softball semifinals Wednesday against the South County Stallions. Corridon went 0 for 3 in the seven innings of regulation play, then led off the eighth inning with a bunt single. Her teammates followed with three more hits for three runs to secure the win and send the Cougars to the Northern Region finals on Friday.

The breakout inning came after seven innings of scoreless play, with a pitchers' duel between the Stallions' Rebecca Martin and the Cougars' Allison Davis dictating the game. Martin tallied 14 strikeouts, while Davis notched 16 strikeouts to her name. Davis threw 117 pitches, giving up three hits and two walks in eight innings.

"[Martin] wasn't the fastest pitcher, but we kind of got in our own heads," Corridon said. "I came back after my first at-bat where I struck out and said, 'Wow, she has some curve on her ball.' She just had a wacky pitch. We weren't ready for that because we haven't had to really face someone with a curve."

Both teams had their moments where they threatened to score. The Stallions loaded the bases in the third inning only to have catcher Mandy Krage squelch their hopes with a caught foul ball to the far right of the backstop. The Cougars had runners on second and third with one out in the fourth inning, but a popout in foul territory and a strikeout left both runners stranded.

In the top of the eighth, all three coaches on the Cougar staff approached Corridon before her leadoff at-bat to offer some simple advice: Get on base. Corridon made the decision herself to go for a bunt, which she laid down far enough out of reach of the pitcher, catcher and third baseman on the third base line to get herself on base. 

"I was a little nervous to be in that position. I didn't have the best day," said Corridon, a senior center fielder and co-captain. "Once I got on first base, I realized this really was the inning. We were going to make it happen."

Second baseman Becky Cerva, a sophomore, followed with a sacrifice bunt to put Corridon at second. The Stallions then pitched out of the strike zone to Davis, giving the Cougars two runners with Emily Krisanda — who leads the team in RBI — up to bat. But Martin notched her 14th strikeout of the night for the second out. 

Then Krage, a senior and co-captain who hit a line drive double in the fourth inning, had her second hit of the game with a groundball single to center field to score Corridon for the first run of the game.

The Cougars continued the two-out rally with RBI singles from third baseman Hayley French, the last of the Cougar co-captains, and sophomore designated player Alana Peters to put the score at 3-0. 

"I thought they made a bad decision, and it ended up being good, 'cause they walked [Davis]. Most times this year if you walked [Davis] to get to [Krisanda], that was a bad move," Gordon said. "But then Mandy and Hayley and then Alana, just three huge at-bats. I think our girls started settling down. They saw the spin was there, but the movement wasn't that great."

After two putouts from Cerva at second base and Davis' 16th strikeout, the Cougars secured their spot in the Northern Region final. 

The Cougars will face Stone Bridge at 4 p.m. Friday at Madison High in pursuit of their first region title since 2001.