After reaching first base in the fifth inning of the Division 1 softball district semifinal on Saturday, May 30, Northville junior Kennedi Adams clutched her chest, tilted her head back in disbelief and let out a loud sigh of relief.
If not for a dropped ball on the Ohio State commit’s pop fly, the No. 4 Mustangs (32-4-1) might not be preparing this week for a regional semifinal June 6 against Gibraltar Carlson at Temperance Bedford.
As expected, Northville’s 5-0 win over ninth-ranked Salem (28-7-1) turned into another pitching duel between Mary Gugala and Shannon McAuliffe, with neither allowing much through five scoreless innings.
With two outs and Kendall Kohler in scoring position, Adams caught a break when Salem’s defense dropped her pop fly, allowing her to drive in the first of three runs in the inning and swing momentum in Northville’s favor. The Mustangs carried that momentum into the district championship game, where they blanked Canton 14-0.
“I was really relieved they dropped it,” said Adams, a center fielder. “I was scared I wasn’t going to get a hit to get that third-base runner in. But as soon as they dropped it, it was a sigh of relief, like, ‘Oh, we scored a run! Now we’re going to have so much more momentum from this point.’ We knew that was going to be the starting point of getting our energy going.”
It certainly was. Kendall Herron benefited from the same mistake one at-bat later, bringing home Abby Parrinello and Adams on another dropped pop fly to make it 3-0.
Northville added two more runs in the sixth. Alyssa Spencer tripled to left to score Sophie Clauson, then scored on a wild pitch to ensure the Mustangs’ third victory over the Rocks. The two teams split during Kensington Lakes Activities Association West play before Northville blanked Salem, 6-0, in the KLAA championship game.
“We knew whoever got the first run that the pressure would intensify on the team that had the zero,” Northville coach Scott DeBoer said. “But the one thing I felt we had going for us coming in was that we had the advantage with a deeper lineup, 1-9, 1-10. I knew we could utilize a few different people.”
Well, sort of.
McAuliffe, a Murray State signee, gave up only two hits in six innings, but the six walks she allowed helped Northville manufacture runs. She finished with five strikeouts and surrendered just two earned runs.
Gugala, who signed with Wayne State, struck out 10, walked three and allowed two hits while pitching herself out of a jam to preserve the shutout.
“Pitching-wise, it was outstanding from two All-State pitchers, but our depth showed a little bit more,” DeBoer added. “But that’s exactly what you would’ve expected from two top-10 ranked teams in the state with two All-State pitchers going at each other. This is the fourth time we’ve played each other, and all of them have been battles just like this one.”
The game unfortunately lacked the atmosphere of a top-10 matchup that probably should’ve been played in a regional final or state quarterfinal. But the MHSAA does not seed the baseball and softball postseasons, leaving matchups to a random draw each spring.
That meant Northville and Salem met at 10 a.m. in a postseason opener. There was a sparse crowd at first before fans gradually trickled in. Had the game been played in primetime, it likely would’ve resembled the packed-house atmosphere of the KLAA championship game two weeks earlier.
“Our motto is to ’embrace hard,’ and if you look at our schedule, we’ve now played 15 top-10 teams, so we’ve … prepared for moments like this,” DeBoer said. “We knew to get anywhere, you have to beat good teams, whether it’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday or at the quarterfinal. You’ll eventually have to beat a good team, and Salem was a good team.”
That’s why the Mustangs put a premium on grabbing momentum first. In a battle between two similar opponents, it’s all about who can get the ball rolling.
In this case, it was Adams, who went 2-for-3 with a walk and three runs scored against Canton. Also against the Cobras, Jocelyn Burns doubled and drove in four runs, Herron tripled, scored three runs and finished with three RBIs and Gugala struck out seven more batters in 4⅔ innings.
“We knew that, as a team, we needed to have higher energy than Salem,” Adams said. “Salem is a really good team, and we’ve played them multiple times. To get that first run in like that, it was inspiring. I build off my teammates’ energy, so knowing that I was the one who started it today just made me feel great. I knew it was going to get us going, and that’s what we needed.”
While facing Carlson (21-10-1) shouldn’t feel like another heated battle against a conference rival, Adams and the Mustangs will need to bring the energy early again. Their regional semifinal is also scheduled for another 10 a.m. start.
But once they get warmed up, expect them to compete, especially if they earn a likely shot at third-ranked Saline in the championship game that follows.
Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life and the Detroit Free Press. Follow him on his new X.com account at @folsomwrites.
This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: MHSAA softball: Northville blanks Salem, advances to regional semis
Reporting by Brandon Folsom, Hometownlife.com / Hometownlife.com
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
