No. 6 Mercy claims first CHSL title since 2016 with 10-0 win over Cabrini
DETROIT — Up the middle was fine for a while.
As long as Mackenzie Noah could keep the No. 6-ranked Marlins of Farmington Hills Mercy hitting the ball right back at her, Allen Park Cabrini could keep itself in the game.
Kendall Spivey’s laser shot of a three-run homer to dead center field in the third inning Tuesday changed the whole complexion of Catholic High School League Bishop Division title game in an instant, though, as the Marlins pounded out 11 hits in five innings to beat the Monarchs, 10-0, for their first CHSL title since 2016.
“It looked like a line drive. I was like ‘maybe I should start sprinting.’ But it went over. I wasn’t expecting it,” Spivey said. “My goal is to not hit it at the pitcher, so I kind of swung as hard as I could. Kind of the mindset going up there: Leave nothing on the field.”
There was no doubt it had the distance — the only question was height.
“I wasn’t sure. That’s a typical Kendall shot. I’m not sure it got over eight feet (off the ground), but that fence looks about seven,” first-year Mercy coach Corey Burras joked.
It was obvious from the beginning of the game that Mercy (25-3) had Noah timed up, with the first two batters lacing line drives right back to the pitching circle, both of which she caught. The Cabrini senior — who started for the Monarchs in the CHSL A-B title game two years ago as a sophomore — used another comebacker to end a Mercy bases-loaded opportunity in the second, keeping it a scoreless tie.
“Just coming out of the box, they had her timed up. She’s a great pitcher. We’ve seen her a few times. She always produces,” Burras said. “We timed her up, and she made great plays. But it’s just indicative — we had a great practice yesterday. She had a great game the last time we played. We played them on a Tuesday, and had a doubleheader the next Wednesday, so we saw a lot of her. She lives on the edges, expanding the zone. We practiced the zones yesterday, letting the ball travel deep, and that’s exactly what we did today.”
After Spivey’s home run, the Marlins used two more singles to put baserunners on, then got RBI groundouts by Kat Burras and Morgan Rood to expand the lead to 5-0.
Mercy pushed the lead to 9-0 in the fourth, when Grace Nieto led off with a triple and scored on a squeeze bunt by Izzy Chaput. Maggie Murphy drove in another run with a comebacker, and Asia Barbato made it a nine-run lead with an RBI single before Noah could get out of the jam with a pair of pop-outs.
“That’s kind of the way we’ve been doing it,” Burras said. “Get through the order once, feel pretty comfortable, and we go back to our training. Since the start of the season, everyone — top to bottom — has worked hard, and this is an indication of the work we’ve put in.”
Nieto singled and stole second in the bottom of the fifth, then scored on Chaput’s RBI single to get the Marlins to the mercy-rule limit of 10 runs.
Barbato and Sophia Paluk combined on a three-hit shutout.
Mary Schantz and Samantha Graf both doubled for Cabrini (10-5), but the Monarchs couldn’t get either in from scoring position.
For Mercy, it’s the program’s seventh overall CHSL title, and fourth since 2013.
But it’s the first for Burras, who took over this season.
“This is validation. It’s a great school, and the school brings great athletes. Jerry (Ashe) has run this program for 25 years, and we have great coaches, and I’m standing on the shoulders. It’s a program. I’m proud that I was selected, and that I’ve been able to maintain the Mercy standard,” Burras said, acknowledging he leans on Ashe in the dugout. “There are conversations — collaborative decisions. He says, ‘You’re the coach, you make the decision,’ but he lets me make a fully informed decision. We have Mal (athletic director Nancy Malinowski), she’s been doing this forever. She’s an institution. Jerry’s an institution. I’m glad I can be part of that.”
It helps, too, that he’s got a keystone combination like Nieto and Murphy, who are headed to Northwestern and Miami (Ohio), respectively.
“Tremendous. Our No. 1 and 2 batters, batting average, RBIs, all the big numbers. I tell our pitchers — we have two freshman pitchers — I tell them this is the best defense you’re going to play for. There’s going to be a huge gap — I’m looking next year, and there will be a huge gap,” Burras said of the senior twosome. “Leadership. They bring the tradition of Mercy. They bring the jersey, the pride, the confidence. Everything. They make coaching easy. We have a very young team. Over half our team are first-year players, from freshmen to COVID sophomores, and just to have them provide leadership, they can be an assistant coach. I have three coaches, plus two in the field, and a coach can’t ask for much more than that.”
With a young team and a new coach, it was hard to tell exactly what Mercy might be this year — much the same boat most programs have been in after missing last season.
“At the start of the season, I knew our only obstacle was probably Regina, and then we came out and beat every team in the Catholic League pretty easily. We haven’t won a Catholic League title in a while, so it’s a lot of pride for our school and our team,” Spivey said. “We have a pretty young team, so getting together with COVID, and everything, has been kind of difficult, but I think we did a good job with what we have.”