Ocean City Red Raiders, down 13-2 to Cedar Creek, come back to win 21-15
OCEAN CITY — It didn’t make sense to stick around and watch.
The Red Raider girls were down 8-0 at the top of the second inning. Two big Ocean City home runs made a dent, 8-2, in the bottom of the third, but the Cedar Creek Pirates quickly added five more runs in the fourth for a 13-2 lead while Ocean City High School didn’t add any.
With the 10-run rule pending, a mercy rule that ends games after the fifth to keep them from getting ugly, even some fans (and this reporter/photographer) left the April 21 game.
Way. Too. Soon.
In the bottom the fifth, Ocean City exploded for 10 runs. Still behind 14-12 after the Pirates picked up one more in the top of the sixth, the Red Raiders exploded again, this time for nine runs, jumping ahead 21-14. The Pirates added one more in the top of the seventh, but Ocean City got to celebrate an astounding comeback.
Afterward, their coach, still in awe of what happened, sent out a photo of her players smiling, gathered around a scoreboard that looked pretty terrible only about an hour earlier but now read 21-15.
“I believe out of all my years of playing at the Babe Ruth, high school and then college level, and then coaching softball these last six years, that is the most wild game I’ve been a part of,” head coach Carrie Merritt said.
Her players, she explained, “have a different energy than prior teams that I’ve coached here.
“Early on in the game, (Cedar Creek) scored those early runs and nobody was that concerned. Jess Mooney kept saying, ‘We’re OK, we’re OK. We’re gonna find a way to score runs.’ But then it grows to 13-2 and we’re on the verge of mercy rule. In my brain I’m saying to these kids, ‘We can still do this,’ but my logical brain is like, ‘Oh, my gosh, what am I going to say to these kids in left field after this one?’
“And then,” Merritt said, “out of nowhere, the bats came alive. You could just feel the energy lift, and they really started to believe and have some fun.
“For this team, I think there’s a fine balance of being focused and locked in, but they play better when they are having fun. And Tuesday, in the fifth inning, they found their fun, and they found their energy, and that’s when everything started coming together.”
Back in the third inning, sophomore catcher Leah Catto got the Red Raiders on the board with her solo homer. Senior pitcher/first baseman Mooney immediately followed with another solo homer.
Things got quiet on the Ocean City side after that, until those big fifth and sixth innings.
Mooney added two more home runs, including a grand slam, and a single to boot.
Alex Rothman had three singles, Brooke Douglas a triple and single, Mackenzie Vandever a double and two singles, Avery Watson and sophomore Keira Murray a double and single each, and Kiley McCorristin two singles. Briar McNair had a single as well.
Murray picked up her first win on the mound, coming on in the fifth inning and allowing only two hits and two runs after the Pirates tagged Rothman for five runs on three hits and Douglas for eight runs on eight hits.
It improved the Red Raider girls to 10-3 on the season at that point, with two of the losses to unbeaten St. Joseph of Hammonton.
Cedar Creek’s Kiera Watson was dominant on the mound for four innings, allowing only those two homers, but things went askew after that as 10 more runs crossed the plate. Emeri Disney gave up seven more runs and Peyton Parker two runs as they came on in relief.
“I had to text you because everyone, including my family, the athletic director, they were leaving the game. They’re like, ‘OK, great, it’s an early dinner tonight,’” Merritt said about sending out the post-game photo.
“Athletic Director Mike Pellegrino had stopped at our game, then walked over to baseball. (The boys were facing Cedar Creek around the corner and won 8-3.) He left when the score was 2 to 13. He heard cheering and he came back and we’re up 21 to 15,” Merritt said.
“He was like, ‘How on Earth did this happen?’ So truly a pretty special day for our kids,” she said.
She mentioned Mooney, who hasn’t been able to pitch because of a hand injury. “I think that was her way of like, ‘OK, I’m not helping on the mound, but I’ve got to do something.’”
“We had a real special day from Keira Murray. She’s listed fourth on our pitching depth charts. She’s never pitched a varsity inning,” the coach said. “She ended up coming in as relief and shut Cedar Creek down and had three hits herself.”
Merritt said the team had been depending on a trio of players — Mooney, Douglas and Catto — to supply the brunt of the hits, but this season pretty much all of the players up and down the lineup can connect with the ball. She also pointed out some of the smaller things, such as McNair laying down a bunt single, a delayed steal by Watson that got the team energy up.
“It was cool little things that are great softball IQ that our team is really showing now more than ever.”
“It’s a moment that could kind of help push and define where we go the rest of the season,” Merritt said. “And if nothing else, it’s certainly a game down the road that these kids can look back on and think, ‘Wow, we were part of a comeback kid story that day.’”
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
Photo at top courtesy of coach Carrie Merritt.
