Source: Observer/Eccentric

Author: Dan O'Meara

Junior Andrea Elmore pitched her second four-hit victory in as many days to lead Farmington Hills Mercy to the championship of the Gibraltar Carlson softball tournament Saturday.

She threw a complete game and struck out 10 as the Marlins defeated the host Marauders in the final game, 5-1. She issued only one walk in seven innings.

Molly Murphy drove in the first Mercy run with a groundout, and the Marlins clinched the win with a four-run fifth inning.

Shannon Gibbons made it 2-0 with a run-scoring single. Alex Sobczak followed with a two-run single, and Sophia VanAcker’s groundout scored Sobczak.

Carlson scored in the bottom of the seventh with back-to-back doubles by Autumn Egan and Jane Ferguson.

Katlyn McCormack also pitched a complete game for the Marauders, allowing seven hits and two walks with no strikeouts.

Mercy won its first two games in five-inning mercies, starting with a 12-4 win over Flat Rock in which Sobczak went 3-for-4 with six RBI.

Sobczak, who played every position during the tournament, hit a solo homer in the first inning, a three-run dinger in the second and a two-run double in the fifth.

Nicole Belans was 3-for-3 and Alissa Sweeney 2-for-2; both scored two runs. Jordan Johnson was 2-for-4 and had two RBI. Anna Dixon contributed a two-run triple.

Gibbons and Abby Krzywiecki pitched two innings each and Sobczak one. Altogether, they allowed six hits, walked four and struck out four.

Krzywiecki pitched a one-hit shutout in the next game as the Marlins routed Brighton, 14-0. Krzywiecki struck out six and didn’t walk anybody.

She nearly hit for the cycle, too, going 3-for-3 with a double, a triple and three RBI. Murphy also was 3-for-3 with three singles, drove in three runs and scored three times.

Cari Padula, Morgan Ewald and Sobczak had two hits each as the Marlins pounded 15 for the second straight game.

Ewald drove in four runs – two with a single and two more with a double. She also had a bases-loaded walk for a fifth RBI.

Padula, Sobczak and Johnson scored two runs each. Taylor Lombard added an RBI single; Padula had an RBI, too.

Big win for Mercy

Elmore struck out 17 batters on Friday as Mercy edged visiting Monroe St. Mary-Catholic Central in a battle between two of the state’s top teams, 2-1.

The Marlins are ranked No. 2 in Division 1 by the coaches association; the Kestrels are the top-ranked team in Division 3.

Elmore refused to issue a free pass. SMCC sophomore pitcher Meghan Beaubien, who committed to Michigan more than a year ago, struck out 16 and walked two while scattering six hits.

Mercy won the game in the bottom of the eighth when Sobczak scored on Johnson’s two-out, walk-off single.

Van Acker had an RBI single in the third inning that also plated Sobczak, who was 0-for-2 and hit by a pitch twice.

The Kestrels tied the score in the top of the seventh with back-to-back doubles by Juliann Verner and Danielle Michael.

Murphy and Verner were 2-for-3 and VanAcker 2-for-4.