RUN WITH THE WIN
Big seventh inning helps Mercy top Country Day to open season
BEVERLY HILLS >> Both host Detroit Country Day and visiting Farmington Hills Mercy can feel pretty good about large parts of Monday afternoon’s softball season opener. Just as it did last season, Mercy got things started with an eight-run road victory over the Yellowjackets, this time by a score of 10-2.
Now, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether two programs that began the year in the same spot in 2023 will also end it together in the regional finals, as they did last spring.
Monday’s final score would indicate there’s much that separates the pair, but the contest looked destined for extra frames until the Marlins broke out with eight runs in the top of the seventh inning to run away with the win.
“I knew coming into the seventh we’d have the top of the order coming up, so I was feeling confident,” Mercy head coach Corey Burras said. “We were seeing that kid the fourth time through the order. We see a pitcher enough, we’re gonna have good moves on the ball, and we really came through.”
That “kid,” Country Day’s Juliette Hauser, was relatively mistake-free on the mound in her first varsity start before Mercy’s big inning.
“We’ve got a freshman pitcher who pitched her heart out essentially for seven innings, and they finally got to her,” Country Day head coach Brian Skiba said.
Hauser allowed back-to-back solo shots by Charlie Lambert and Kat Burras in the third before stranding runners the next three times out to give her team a chance, which the Yellowjackets took advantage of in the bottom of the fifth when Elise Hiemstra doubled to drive in Addie Hartley, tying the game 2-2.
Lambert doubled over Megan Kenney in center field to start the fateful seventh for Mercy, then
Burras broke the deadlock by driving a 2-0 offering into the outfield to score Lambert. Then cleanup hitter Evelyn Miller joined the aforementioned duo in the homer club by sending a 2-1 pitch over the fence in center to make it a three-run game.
Consecutive errors by the Yellowjackets — all three they committed on the day came in that seventh — played a part in the ending spiraling out of reach.
“It was nice to see the bats coming along,” said Burras, whose team put together six hits before recording an out in the last inning. “We just couldn’t get that timely hit and extend the ending a couple of times (prior to then). But it was nice to see that when we really needed a couple runs, the bats came around.”
Hauser’s opposite, senior Sophia Paluk (Northwood University), scattered eight hits and struck out a dozen, and along with Kaitlyn Pallozzi (Alabama), forms an arsenal of arms that helped give Mercy the second spot in the Division 1 preseason poll.
“We have a couple freshmen coming up, Soph, and of course Kaitlyn, who’s proven herself to be quite effective,” Burras said. “Our rotation’s looking good.”
Each team came painfully close to reaching the quarterfinals last season.
Just a few plays were the difference in the Marlins’ 3-0 defeat to Hartland, while Country Day fell to
Richmond, 1-0, in eight innings on its own turf in the Division 2 tourney.
“It was tough,” Skiba said. “The kids that are seniors this year, their freshman year, they won districts and regionals and got to the quarterfinals. Sophomore year (they did the same thing). Junior year, they got to the regional final and lost in extras on a walk-off. So they’ve got some big goals this year, but we’re also taking every game one at a time. I think last season, we might have at times been looking ahead. We’re not going to do that this year.”
Burras echoed the approach of taking it one-byone for the Marlins, who went undefeated in the regular season last spring.
Maintaining confidence and grinding to ensure the potential is realized will be the aim for Mercy, and while Burras appreciated the votes of confidence that placed his team No. 2 in the rankings, he knows how much weight that carries in regards to carrying the team to its ultimate postseason goals.
“I think it was on our Instagram,” Burras said in reference to the ranking. “I said, ‘Yeah, it’s nice.’ It’s great that the coaches see the potential. But that potential means expectations. (I told them) not to internalize that pressure, and to process through it and do the best you can. Over the last three or four years, we’ve lost 10 games. It’s nice to be recognized. But if these preseason rankings mean anything … I don’t know. The postseason rankings are the ones that matter to us.”