By Angela Watts
Assistant GM, Washington D.C. Metro Area
** Click the links to the left to access hundreds of photos and dozens of video highlights from Saturday’s title game!
** Look below the story to find the All-Northern Region honorees.
South County senior shortstop Meaghan Hunt had barely rounded first base Saturday afternoon at Madison High school when, realizing her fourth-inning shot to right field had cleared the fence, she raised both arms above her head and wiggled with excitement.
She didn’t have the luxury of wiggling as she rounded first again in the sixth inning, but her two-RBI double to center field left certainly the rest of her team dancing in the dugout.
Hunt’s three RBI lifted South County to a 3-1 victory over Centreville and gave the Stallions their first Northern Region championship in school history.
South County becomes the first Patriot District team to win the regional crown since Lake Braddock did in 2002, and only the second Patriot District team to win since the league was created in 1995.
“We came into this game having already met our goals,” South County Coach Al Thompson said. “Our goal was to go to the state tournament in the year before we lost four awesome seniors. And when we hit that goal it didn’t deflate us, but it calmed us. So we came into this game ready to have fun.
“There is a great softball team over there in that other dugout. We wouldn’t have wanted to play any other team that wasn’t their caliber. This was the game we wanted, and it was a great one. No one ran away with this.”
In large part, the championship game between Centreville and South County was a pitchers’ dual. Wildcat senior standout Jessica Ferrick and Stallion junior standout Chelsey Dunham, the region’s top two pitchers, both bent but rarely broke.
Hunt’s solo home run in the top of the fourth gave the Stallions a 1-0 lead.
But the Wildcats responded immediately, tying it up in the bottom half of the inning on an RBI by freshman second baseman Courtney Burke that scored senior third baseman Kirsten Sepulveda, who reached on an line drive single up-the-middle.
And so the battle was back on.
That was until the top of the sixth inning when, with two two outs and two runners on, Hunt blasted a shot to deep centerfield to plated two runs and proved the difference-maker.
“Both pitchers were absolutely great,” Thompson said. “Unfortunately for them, there was one pitch that was left up for Meaghan to take and she took it. She likes them high. So that was a big, big mistake.
“But it could just have easily been Chelsey who could have thrown that pitch to their catcher [Victoria Marvin] or Jess Ferrick and that would have gone over the fence and it would have been us looking at it go goodbye.”
That almost happened in the bottom of the sixth when Ferrick, with one runner on and one out, took a pitch over the left field fence just a few feet outside of the foul pole. But after yielding a single to Ferrick instead, Dunham came back and struck out her eighth Centreville batter to then watched at junior outfielder Karly Thompson made a catch in center to push the game into its final inning.
“It’s a game of inches sometimes,” Centreville Coach Rich Ferrick said. “But we fought hard. We had runners on base and in scoring position, we just have to find a way to score those runs. But the girls hung in there and never quit … I’m very proud of them.”
The Stallions then retired all three batters it faced in the bottom of the seventh — on fly-ball snags from Hunt, junior second baseman Taylor Dillow and senior first baseman Kayla Reisinger — to seal the victory.
“The way I feel about it is if we came back here tomorrow night and played the result could be different,” Thompson said. “It was just two great teams and a great game.”
Email: awatts@digitalsports.com
R H E
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South County 000 102 0 — 3 8 2
Centreville 000 100 0 — 1 5 1
All-Northern Region Honorees
Player of the Year: Marcy Bowdren, Jr., Robinson
Pitcher of the Year: Chelsey Dunham, Jr., South County
Coach of the Year: Maurice Tawil, McLean
First Team
P Jessica Ferrick, Sr., Centreville
C Victoria Marvin, Sr., Centreville
1B Kayla Reisinger, Sr., South County
2B Khaila Conlon, Jr., Madison
SS Lauren McColgan, Jr., McLean
3B Stephanie Sbardella, Jr., South County
OF Julie Kastner, Soph., South County
OF Lauren Sutherland, Jr., McLean
OF Gretchen Sneider, Sr., Yorktown
At-Large Hannah Bauman, Sr., Yorktown
At-Large Carmine Cuda, Sr., Lake Braddock
At-Large Ashley Gardner, Sr., Stone Bridge
At-Large Emily Panyard, Sr., Yorktown
At-Large Jennifer Windau, Sr., Hayfield
At-Large Izzy Yaroch, Soph., Annandale
Second Team
P Sam Brady, Soph., Madison
C Michelle Tilson, Jr., Marshall
1B Lauren Sanata, Jr., Marshall
2B Brittany McCray, Jr., McLean
SS Lisa Charney, Sr., Fairfax
3B Jasmine Picini, Fr., West Potomac
OF Hannah Williams, Jr., Hayfield
OF Kasey McMahon, Jr., Westfield
OF Brittany Weber, Jr., Edison
AL Sam Bauer, Sr., West Potomac
AL Taylor Dillow, Jr., South County
AL Steph English, Sr., Chantilly
AL Amber Fowler, Fr., Hayfield
AL Rachel Keung, Sr., W.T. Woodson
AL Madeline Liberti, Soph., Stuart
AL Jess McNamara, Soph., Westfield
AL Robin Mendlow, Sr., Westfield
AL Stephanie Rheinheimer, Sr., Edison
AL Ashley Rollins, Jr., Fairfax
AL Kristen Soroka, Sr., Yorktown
AL Ashley Stegemiller, Sr., Falls Church
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