MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Improbable? OK. Impossible? Obviously not!
Maryville completed a perfect run through the Collegiate Conference of the South Softball Tournament on Saturday with a 6-5 victory over Belhaven. Four wins in four days and two of those came against the Blazers, the No. 6 team in the country according to the latest national polls.
Paige Dickinson belted the deciding three-run homer and the Scots held off a late Blazers push behind the refuse-to-lose pitching of
Megan Ackerman. Belhaven scored three runs in the sixth inning and one more in the seventh before the Maryville ace retired the final three hitters in order.
"This group, I have not counted out of anything all year," Scots head coach
Jill Moore said. "We learn from our mistakes; we get better from them – they knew they could win this thing. They just refused to be denied."
20-Game Winner
Ackerman won three times and pitched the final 27 innings over three consecutive days, finishing with a 2.59 ERA – not bad considering the competition. She reached 20 wins for the season and was named tournament Most Outstanding Player.
Joining Ackerman on the All-Tournament Team from Maryville were Dickinson,
Brecca Williams,
Micayla Clark and
Cierra Hudson.
Williams began the game with an infield single and later scored. Then she sparked the five-run Maryville fifth with a leadoff triple over the center fielder's head and came home on a safety-squeeze bunt by
Sara Koonce for a 2-1 lead.
Williams finished the game 2-for-4 with two runs scored. For the tournament, she batted .471 (8-for-17) with seven runs scored in four games, two doubles, a triple and five RBIs. Her .706 slugging percentage also led the team, and she was flawless in 15 chances at the hot corner.
"Brecca is one of the best players in our conference, and she showed why this weekend," Moore said. "Even her outs were hit hard. She got on base and scored runs for us all weekend. She is a difference-maker and a playmaker, and it was a joy to watch her compete this weekend."
Team-Leading Seven RBIs
Dickinson led the Scots with seven RBIs, none bigger than her three-run blast to left-center that sent 21-win Belhaven ace Kennedy Carruth out of the circle and put Maryville in front 6-1.
"Paige was ready," Moore said. "She hits balls hard, and she had been just missing. She did not miss that one."
The Scots needed every bit of that five-run cushion because the Belhaven bats came alive in the sixth and seventh. Katie Jo Richardson doubled home a run and then Anna Caime popped a two-run homer to narrow the lead to 6-4.
Things would have been even worse if
Ava Whitmire did not make a home-run saving catch at the left field fence against Natalie Parker, one batter before Caime's long ball.
"It was really hard, and we were going on Inning 20 (against Belhaven)," Moore said. "Paige gave us some needed breathing room and then Ava saved a run there by stealing that home run. They homered right after that, so that catch saved the game."
White-Knuckle Finish
Belhaven in the seventh sent up 2-3-4, and Allie Gordon leading off did what she does and ripped a solo home run to left. But that was where it ended. Ackerman buckled down and forced a couple of popups to
Kaitlin Woodruff at second before the final out landed in the mitt of Clark in right field.
Gloves in the air! Screams all around! The Scots were the champs!
Ackerman unofficially in the tournament threw 394 pitches. She made 198 pitches in Thursday's 13-inning win over Belhaven and then a combined 196 pitches in the victories against Piedmont (92) on Friday and Belhaven (104) again on Saturday.
"Megan was tremendous," Moore said. "She knew what her job was. We knew it was going to be hard and we were ready for the hard. All year, we have been working on doing hard better. When Paige hit that home run, Megan said she had it from there.
"And she was the toughest person out there today."
The Scots received key at bats from Clark, Hudson and a host of others up and down the lineup.
Clark had an RBI-single in the first and a run-scoring ground out in the fifth. She hit .385 (5-for-13) for second on the team and had a double, a triple, two stolen bases and four runs batted in. Hudson batted .333 and caught 12 big balls in center field.
Bailey Myers and
Emily Hill both went 5-for-15 and played errorless ball on the infield.
"
Micayla Clark was clutch with some big hits," Moore said. "She and Cierra set us up for runs and both were deserving of their all-tournament selections."
Records for 33 Wins, .750 Winning Percentage
This is Year 2 of the two-year acclimation period for the CCS, which means there is no additional postseason for the Scots. Maryville ends this memorable campaign with 33 wins against just 11 losses, setting program records both for number of victories and winning percentage (.750). In Moore's two seasons leading the Scots, Maryville is 60-26 (.698) overall and 24-8 (.750) in conference regular season play.
Maryville as an athletics department now has
six CCS team championships in 2023-24: Women's Soccer (regular season and tournament), Men's Basketball (regular season and tournament), Baseball (regular season) and Softball (tournament). Baseball hosts the CCS tournament starting Wednesday at Scotland Yard.
