Softball: Shorthanded Mount St. Mary holds off Hillsborough to advance to county quarters

WATCHUNG – The Mount St. Mary Academy softball team and its junior ace could not have been under more pressure in Saturday’s Somerset County Tournament second-round game against a program that’s owned this tournament for the better part of the past quarter century.

While Hillsborough might be undergoing a rebuilding season, with just four starters back from a club that went to the state finals last year, it’s still quite the intimidating presence on the diamond. And for a squad like the Mount Lions that hasn’t been out of the second round in a decade to not only withstand immense pressure throughout the contest and watch a seven-run lead closed to one skinny run, to do so against a team with the Raiders’ pedigree and without two of its starters, made Saturday’s hard-fought victory even more impressive.

Junior right-hander Anna Ziccardi allowed just five earned runs on nine hits, walked four and struck out 16, and the three-year starter also provided the game’s biggest hit, a third-inning grand slam, finishing 2-for-3 with six RBIs. Sophomore Sarah Algier added three hits, including a triple, and four RBIs, and the eighth-seeded Mount Lions advanced to the quarterfinals with a 10-8 home victory over No. 9 seed Hillsborough.

“Proud is an understatement,” said Mount St. Mary coach Brittany Maldanado, whose team advances to the county quarterfinals for the first time since 2014 and will visit top-seeded defending champ Watchung Hills next Saturday. “We are two starters down, and a lot of injuries and illnesses have been plaguing us all season. So, for our bench to come out and show up was huge."

Said Ziccardi, “Today, we really jumped on our opportunities. We’re missing two of our big hitters, so having people come into the lineup and perform was definitely a great thing for us.”

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Those two big missing hitters are third baseman and No. 3 batter Izzy DeLuca, who sustained a laceration above the eyebrow Thursday after taking a line drive to the facemask and will miss a few games, and left fielder Kylie Forte, who suffered a shoulder injury and has missed a week.

Instead, their replacements in the lineup came up clutch. That included sophomore Courtney Carew, who posted two hits, two runs and a stolen base and was robbed of a third hit on a great diving snare of a line drive by Hillsborough third baseman Kayla Chess, and sophomore left fielder Isabella Law, who entered in the third inning and would have notched her varsity hit had the runner not gotten thrown out at second base on her shot to left field.

“We’ve been working really hard the past month and a half,” Ziccardi said. “We have a lot of freshmen this year, and it’s really exciting to have them coming into our program, and we just have a really great team bond, the best I’ve seen in a long time. We’ve working together really well, meshing, and we had the energy really high today. We really came today, which I’m really proud of.”

Said Maldanado, “What I’ve learned, with my girls, is I have to channel over-the-top positivity, and they’ve been responding incredibly well. It’s huge that we’re able to count on our bench coming through and not just our starters. We had a lot of girls playing out of position, and to be able to still have an attitude where our girls are playing for one another, especially under pressure playing Hillsborough, was huge. It was huge for them to come out and play their best games against a team that was in the Group 4 state finals last year.”

Mount St. Mary’s energy was evident from the start. After Ziccardi retired Boro in order in the top of the first inning, the Mount Lions went to work, as Vanessa Kosuda walked to lead off – she’d finish 2-for-2 with two free passes and four runs scored – and later came home on a two-out RBI single by Ziccardi.

Hillsborough had an immediate retort, tying the game in the top of the second on a leadoff single by Claire Marcinek, who finished 4-for-4 with a double, three steals, two RBIs and three runs scored, and an RBI double by Grace Brouillard, who finished 2-for-3 with a walk and two RBIs.

After Hillsborough freshman starter Madison Lutzky struck out the side in the second inning, Mount St. Mary exploded for five runs in the third, getting an RBI single from Algier and a grand slam homer to center field by Ziccardi on a 3-0 count. Mount St. Mary added two more runs in the fourth, with Algier knocking one in with a triple and then scoring on Ziccardi’s sacrifice fly, and the Lions led 8-1.

But the Raiders were not going down without a fight, pushing the Mount to the brink. Marcinek delivered a two-out, two-run single in the top of the fifth, before Brouillard added an RBI knock, and it was 8-4. An inning later, the Raiders struck for three more, as Lilly McDonough delivered a two-run double – she finished 2-for-3 with a walk, a steal and two runs – and the senior later scored on a wild pitch to make it 8-7.

But Ziccardi avoided further trouble in the inning with two big strikeouts, and her team got her a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the frame to make it 10-7, with Algier’s two-run single getting them home. The Raiders turned up the pressure again in the seventh, getting a run on pinch-hitter Ellery Lambert-Smith’s double, but Mount St. Mary was able to close it out.

“Obviously, I felt the pressure, but, honestly, I think I perform well under pressure,” said Ziccardi of her ability to come up with some big strikeouts in big spots and withstand Hillsborough’s tenacity. “I felt I needed to do this for my team because they’re working their butts off.”

Said Maldanado, “Having Anna Ziccardi in the circle is huge. She works very well under pressure. And having 16 strikeouts is huge. She is pulling her weight and then some. And to I am so proud to see her bearing down and getting those strikeouts (in big spots). Her energy is contagious on the field, and the girls really, truly want to play behind her and play for her. The bond they have that truly makes a difference, I think.”

For Hillsborough, which has won a tournament-record 10 county championships and been to 22 finals in the SCT’s 49-year history – including 17 of the past 20 – this marks the first time since 1998 the Raiders won’t be playing in the quarterfinals.

Saturday’s loss was certainly frustrating, but there were lots of positives for a very young team trying to climb its way back after making the states finals two of the past three seasons.

The Raiders knew they’d be in for a challenging campaign, having lost four starters to graduation, including, arguably, the most dominant pitcher to ever throw a softball in the state of New Jersey in Sarah Davenport. But what they didn’t expect was to also lose their starting shortstop to transfer and their starting right fielder to an offseason injury. Add a pitching staff that did not throw a varsity pitch before this year, one that includes two freshmen, and it’s not a surprise Hillsborough has had a challenging month.

The good news, however, is the program is definitely moving in the right direction, and there were plenty of signs Saturday, including some clutch hitting, four solid innings of relief by senior Kathleen O’Brien that kept her club within striking distance after getting behind by seven runs, some outstanding baserunning – Boro swiped seven bags Saturday – and a scrappy, never-say-die attitude. They also have a fundamentally sound, often spectacular defense, which was on display Saturday, especially at third base, where Chess turned in a couple of sparkling plays.

“It’s frustrating, but there were a lot of good signs,” said coach Cheryl Iaione, who was most frustrated by her team’s 16 strikeouts. “They always battle, and it does give me hope. I believe in them, but they don’t believe in themselves. I know we’re better than this. We have improved in all areas but (still) can’t put it all together on game day. We battled, but we put ourselves in the hole by not hitting.”

BOX SCORE

HILLSBOROUGH (3-10) 010-033-1 – 8-9-2

MOUNT ST. MARY (5-5) 105-202-x – 10-12-2

WP: Ziccardi (5-3). LP: Lutzky (1-6).

2B: H—Brouillard, Marcinek, L. McDonough; MSM—Zatorsky. 3B: MSM—Algier. HR: MSM—Ziccardi (5). SB: H—Marcinek 3, L. McDonough 2, Antonelli 2, Fuller; MSM—Carew.

Staff writer Simeon Pincus has been covering NJ sports since 1997, and has been on the softball beat since 1999. He can be reached at CourierSoftball@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter/X @SimeonPincus

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ Softball: Shorthanded Mount St. Mary holds off Hillsborough in SCT