Woods drive in winning run as Carmichaels girls nip Avella
CARMICHAELS – Just when it looked like extra innings, Carmichaels reached up its sleeve and senior Meghan Wood pulled out a rabbit. Winning pitcher Melissa Metcalf scored the game’s only run after Wood slapped a ball past Avella first baseman Jenna Temple in the bottom of the seventh inning Thursday as the Lady Mikes nipped the Lady Eagles, 1-0, in a key Section 1-A game.
Carmichaels completed the first half of section play 5-0, and now stands in line to join the 2002-03 Lady Mikes basketball team as the only two Carmichaels girls teams to win section titles in the same season.
Six of those basketball players start for the Lady Mikes’ softball team, including Wood, who came up to the plate with Metcalf on third base and Amber Willis on second. With one out, Metcalf laced a single to right field – Carmichaels’ first of the game off Avella right-hander Dilanne Bedillion – and Willis followed with a sharp single to left-center.
Metcalf hustled and beat the throw to third base, and Willis also took advantage of the throw and pulled into second.
Wood then looked at two balls and sharply fouled off a pitch wide of first base before poking one past Temple to score Metcalf with the winning run. Wood was just looking to make contact, after a rather uneventful fifth-inning at bat in which she led off the inning by taking a called third strike.
Standing on deck after Metcalf had singled and with Willis at the plate, Wood wondered out loud if she was the best person to be coming up in such a pressure-packed situation.
“I’m pretty good at making free throws with two seconds left, but I didn’t (know what was going to happen in my next at bat),” Wood said. “Avella has always given us problems, no matter the sport. It was a nice test for our team to beat them.”
While Carmichaels (9-1) managed only two hits, Avella could muster a mere three of its own off Metcalf. Metcalf worked out several jams, including one in the first inning when Avella had its best chance to score.
Jessica Durbin led off with a single to center, stole second base and continued to third when the throw went into centerfield. Metcalf then struck out Temple and Bedillion swinging before inducing Melanie Giagich to pop out to Willis at first base.
Metcalf finished with eight strikeouts and two walks.
“Our pitching and defense has been doing well all year,” said Carmichaels coach Albert McMinn. “It seems like (the opposition) always has someone on base, but Melissa goes to work then and does her job and our defense does theirs. We’ve really gotten better as a team as the season has progressed.”
Avella’s Ashley Clemmens singled with one out inning and stole second base. After Durbin struck out, Clemmens then stole third base but was stranded when Metcalf ended the inning with a strikeout.
The Lady Eagles threatened in the sixth inning when, with two outs, Giagich’s grounder was mishandled and she wound up at second base. But Metcalf again stopped another scoring chance when she gloved Laina Zibert’s comebacker and threw to first base for the third out.
Bedillion walked a batter in each of the first three innings, but starting with a strikeout to end the third, retired 11 straight batters before Metcalf’s one-out seventh-inning single. She finished with nine strikeouts and three walks.
“We played very well,” said Avella coach Sheryl Wright-Brown. “I really couldn’t ask for anything more. If we can come up with a big hit … things may have been different.”
Carmichaels was coming off wins over West Greene, Mapletown and Frazier earlier this week, but hadn’t played a team of Avella’s quality since defeating defending section champion Chartiers-Houston two weeks ago.
“We beat some teams earlier in the week who had combined for only one win, but this was a really big win today,” McMinn said.