Mercy holds off Northern, pounds Clarkston to win first regional since 2016 title team
The Oakland Press - MATTHEW B. MOWERY - For MediaNews Group
WHITE LAKE — Momentum is never so fleeting that it can’t be regained in the snap of your fingers.
But it’s better if you don’t give it up in the first place.
After watching Walled Lake Northern tie up their regional semifinal at 4-4 in the top of the seventh inning Saturday afternoon, No. 5-ranked Farmington Hills merely grabbed the momentum right back from the Knights in the bottom of the inning, and won it four batters later, 5-4, on Kendall Spivey’s bases-loaded RBI single.
The Marlins never gave Clarkston the chance to come back in the regional final, jumping on the Wolves immediately, and bashing three home runs in a 14-4, five-inning win that sends them on to the quarterfinals for the first time since the 2016 team won it all.
“We knew we had two battles today. It doesn’t matter who we play — our process is the same. … Just working our game. As I told our team afterwards, if we stick to our process, stick to what we do, we’re going to have success. We’re going to control the things we can control,” first-year Mercy coach Corey Burras said. “As soon as you start looking at the scoreboard, and thinking ‘Oh, my goodness …’ it changes the whole complexion, and that’s not the character of this team. Our character is next ball, next pitch, next play — up the pipe or down the pipe. You make a choice.”
Mercy (31-4) advances to the quarterfinal at University of Detroit Mercy on Tuesday, facing No. 9 Macomb Dakota (27-8-1), a 5-1 winner over Utica Ford in their regional final on Saturday.
Once they’d gotten past Northern (34-8), the Marlins wasted no time jumping on Clarkston (8-22) in the title game, scoring three runs in the top of the first, helped in part by three Wolves errors.
“Extremely important. Because they have a couple of hitters on their team, and we knew they were going to score a couple of runs. And that’s OK. But we knew if we were aggressive, and we were on top of them way early, then maybe they won’t have the momentum, even if they got a few hits,” said Marlins leadoff hitter Grace Nieto, who got on base, then stole second and moved on to third when no one stopped her — just as she’d done to set up the game-winning rally in the bottom of the seventh of the semifinal.
“Looking for where the third baseman is. When the batter fake-bunts, she goes in, so third base is kind of left open. When you get up, you just have to read it, and make a call, even if it’s wrong. It’s an instinct.”
Mercy batted around in the third — the big blast a two-run double by Kat Burras — scoring six times to make it a 9-1 game, then added three more runs in the fourth on a solo home run by Spivey and a two-run shot by Morgan Rood.
Maggie Murphy’s two-run homer got the Marlins to the 10-run margin they needed to invoke the mercy rule, once Asia Barbato got them through the bottom of the inning unscathed.
Kiera Tolmie and Giselle Bise hit home runs for Clarkston in the title contest. The Wolves beat Birmingham Groves (15-13) by a 12-1 score in the opening semifinal of the day, the game ended after six innings following Ella Cady’s three-run home run to get the margin to the mercy-rule limit.
“We weren’t necessarily the favorite to even be in this spot, so we’re proud of each other. I’m proud of the girls, happy for them,” said first-year Clarkston coach Katie Smith. “We had a great mindset coming in. We started the year with zero varsity returners. We’re a young team, never played together before, and I don’t think you could’ve noticed that, coming into this game. I think our mindset was there. The girls were ready, they were excited. They played as a team. It was a team win the first one, and they gave it their all, and I’m so, so proud of them. They left everything they had.”
Mercy had the same issue of youth and inexperience in its pitching staff, relying on a pair of freshmen — Barbato and Sophia Paluk — to learn on the fly, as they navigated a tough schedule.
It was incumbent upon the Marlins’ two experienced middle infielders — Northwestern commit Nieto at shortstop and Miami (Ohio) commit Murphy at second — to not let the pressure of Saturday’s games get to the two youngsters in the circle for Mercy.
“I’m not sure if they’ve been in situations like this — I know me and Maggie have been with travel, and sometimes even in high school, so we know the fear of it. I’ve been in her same shoes, like ‘Oh, my gosh, this is so scary.’ Just coming up to her, talking to her, telling her ‘I got your back. I trust you,’” Nieto said. “Putting your faith in her can give her a lot of confidence, I think.”
Burras asked the two — who he likens to coaches on the field — to keep the spirit of the youngsters up.
“I told Grace (to) run her pitcher, manage her pitcher, because the first game, you have nerves. These are true freshmen, by age and by experience. Just having her voice — and it means a lot to freshmen to have a senior talking to them. Maggie, same thing,” the coach said. “Just having that confidence, that appreciation that you’re part of a team, that’s a wonderful thing. I knew that they knew the time to go talk to her. That saves me the time of walking out. Just reaffirmation of ‘Pitch, do what you’ve gotta do. I’ve got your back.’”
The Marlins would end up needing both of them when the Knights began to mount their comeback.
Mercy jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning of the semifinal on a Nieto triple and a sac fly by Izzy Chaput, then made it 2-0 when Gage Lambert double and scored on an infield hit by Nieto. Murphy made it 4-1 with a two-run homer in the fifth, offsetting a Marisa Mazoway solo shot that had gotten Northern on the board an inning earlier.
With the Knights starting to time up Barbato’s pitches, Burras brought in Paluk with one out and two on in the sixth. She got out of the jam with help from Lambert, who made a diving catch in shallow left-center and doubled the runner off second.
“They’re a great team. I knew that. It was time. They were timing her up, starting to move the ball. They got momentum back, and we just needed to have that natural break,” Burras said.
There was still evidence that the Knights were right about to have a big inning — as they did in the seventh. Kayla Turmell led off by reaching on an error, then Lauren Fox tripled past a diving outfielder to cut the deficit to 4-2. Fox came home on a sacrifice fly by Taylor Behrendt, then — after an intentional walk to Mazoway — Jordyn Roel delivered the game-tying hit up the middle.
“We definitely were timing it up, making better decisions at the plate, just hitting the ball hard. Just a couple inches here or there, for a few hits, could’ve been a little bit different. … It would be really easy for us to just get down on ourselves, not come back, but I’m really proud of them for having that mental toughness, that confidence in themselves to go up there, swing at good pitches in the zone, and we gave ourselves a chance to come back and win it,” Northern coach Kristen Woodard said. “I knew we could do it. I’m proud of them for doing it. All those close games really did help. You could see it when it really did matter, when the pressure was on. So we’ll just keep doing that, every year.”
The momentum didn’t last, despite the game being tied.
Nieto led off the bottom of the seventh with a single, then stole second, and immediately swiped third on the same play to put the game-winning run just 90 feet away. Northern intentionally walked Chaput and Murphy to load the bases — creating force-out situations at every base — but it didn’t get them out of the jam, as Spivey singled home the winning run.
“They’re just a feisty team. Good teams fight back, and they sure did. … They came back — I knew it would be tight. I asked Jerry (Ashe, assistant coach) where we are in the lineup, and I knew the top of the lineup was coming, so I knew something was going to happen,” Burras said. “Grace made outstanding plays, and we put the pressure right back on them. … It just puts the pressure on them. I understand walking Maggie, and Izzy’s a great player. But you get to our No. 4 batter, with zero outs. It’s a great strategy, but it’s just one in a million. Everything worked out well. We just took momentum back, and that’s a hallmark of our team. We’re not going to play perfectly, but we’re going to play hard. Getting Grace over there just changed the whole complexion of the game. Three outs to score one run? I’ll take those odds any game.”