Olympic Heights wins district
Lions score six in third inning, roll past Dwyer 14-0.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — Five years ago, Olympic Heights was a four-win softball program that struggled to compete with area teams.
Today, the Lions are firsttime district champions.
Theresa Stettner went 3 for 4 with three RBIs, and Kaitlyn Cunningham pitched a two-hitter to lead the Lions to a 14-0, five-inning rout of host Dwyer on Wednesday night in the District 14-7A championship game.
With the win, Olympic Heights (22-5) moves on to Wednesday’s regional quarterfinals, where it will host the District 13-7A runner-up.
Dwyer (12-12), will play the District 13-7A champion on the road.
“Everything fell into place this year,” Lions coach Cindy Lucia said. “The little things — like winning, then us getting beat, and then winning again — they don’t give up.”
The game was a pitchers’ battle at the start, with Cunningham and Panthers’ starter Skylar Melby combining for four shutout innings.
The Lions broke through in the top of the third, opening the inning with four consecutive singles and going on to take a 6-0 lead.
The Panthers had a pair of costly errors in the inning, including a misplayed fly ball that led to three runs.
Olympic Heights added to its lead in the fourth, scoring three runs on Stettner’s sacrifice fly and a two-run single by Gillian Lapis.
Dwyer struggled to answer.
Cunningham (14-2), who was backed up by an errorf re e Li ons defe nse, shut down the Panthers on two hits, allowing one in the second and the other in the fifth. She walked two — both in the first inning — and hit one batter.
The Lions scored five runs in the fifth for the final margin, hitting six consecutive singles midway through the inning.
“To watch the team grow from literally winning four games my freshman year to winning 22 games this year, we more than quadrupled our wins,” senior out- fielder Kelsea Friend said. “To see everybody work so hard and watch a program grow from pretty much nothing, to being the joke of Boca to being the talk of Boca, it’s insane.”