South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Park Vista survives late scare
Park Vista’s softball team looked like it was going to cruise to the finish line against Cooper City on Friday night, but the Cobras had to withstand a rally by the Cowgirls, who came into the game ranked third in the state by MaxPreps.
After building a 6-2 lead entering the seventh inning, the 2019 Class 7A state champs saw their advantage reduced to one run before finally putting a lid on a 6-5 victory with a strikeout.
The win improved the Cobras to 15-5 while dropping Cooper City to 17-3. Park Vista, who was the state runner-up last season, is ranked 11th by the FHSAA.
“We made it a little more interesting than we wanted to there at the end,” Park Vista coach Joe DellaRocca said. “But they are a good team and you cannot take anyone lightly, no matter what the score is.
The Cobras never trailed in the game and had been leading since the third inning, but they surrendered three runs in the top of the seventh after sophomore outfielder Arlette Caravaca hit the ball into shallow left field with the bases loaded.
Park Vista senior outfielder Karina Rader was unable to make the catch despite a diving attempt, allowing for two runs to come in before a wild throw on the same play led to another Cowgirls run.
Cooper City senior Bianca Polistina then had the potential tying run on third when she came up to the plate for the next at-bat, but sophomore pitcher Nicole Mergen got the outfielder to strike out swinging.
“It just seems like we maybe kind of were thinking we would coast through the last inning there and it just did not happen,” DellaRocca said. “But we were able to hang on and do enough to get a win against a really good team.”
Using an unorthodox pitching approach, the Cobras relied on Mergen and junior pitcher/third baseman Chloe Fariello to record the win. The two alternated being on and off on the mound in the middle of innings from the first inning until the last.
“We do it quite a bit,” DellaRocca said. “It is just a little bit of a strategy more internally than against the opponent. It is a little mental thing, giving our pitchers each an opportunity to try to get through an inning with either two outs or one out.”
Park Vista also took advantage of some uncharacteristically sloppy defensive play from Cooper City. The Cowgirls gave up five runs in part due to errors, leaving the visiting team in a hole that was too big, barely.
“At least we kind of made it a game,” Cooper City coach Phil Schmalz said. “I just felt that we defensively had some tough times and it hurt us. They only had one earned run out of the six that they scored, and any time that happens usually you are going to be on the wrong end.”
Entering the game, the previous loss for each team had been via shutout against to the state’s top-ranked squad, Doral Academy. Doral and Cooper City are Class 6A teams, while Park Vista, in 7A, won’t have to worry about the Firebirds in the postseason.