By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
ABSECON — The Holy Cross Prep softball team has had a lot of distractions the past two weeks. The prom, graduation, a first-round bye in the state sectional tournament, a forfeit win in the second round.
But senior pitcher Jamie Dunn made sure she was focused and ready when the Lancers finally did get their chance to play a postseason game. She twirled a gem on Tuesday afternoon against second-seeded Holy Spirit, striking out 10 and allowing just six hits in Holy Cross’ tidy 6-2 victory. The win pits the third-seeded Lancers against top-seeded St. Joseph Academy on Thursday at 4 p.m. in Hammonton.
Holy Cross scored a run in the top of the first but left the bases loaded, then poured it on in the second, scoring five runs to take a 6-0 lead. That’s all Dunn needed, as she used her control and spin to dominate a Spartans lineup that came in with a .346 team batting average. Dunn didn’t allow a single walk, and that’s been her forte all season. She’s walked just 13 batters and has only one hit batsman in 130 innings pitched this season.
“Walks are crucial. I think there is a statistic that 89 percent of the time if you get a base runner on with a walk (they score),” said Lancers head coach Samantha Pietrow. “She and I are constantly communicating, like, what are we feeling in this at-bat? What pitches can we throw? And when the innings got rough, we said to pitch to contact, let your defense do it for you. That’s exactly what she did and she came up big. I’m proud of her.”
“I was just ready from the start. We had a fast start, the energy was up, the girls came up with the base hits and made the plays that we needed to make and kept the energy up the whole game. (The early lead helped) 100 percent, we were playing with a lead the whole game,” said Dunn, a Mt. Laurel resident. “We were all excited to play this game. It’s the semifinals and this is where we lost last year, to Holy Spirit, at our place, so we wanted to get that back. We were ready.”
Holy Cross plated a run in the first before Spirit starter Mary Kate Armstrong was able to wiggle out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam with a pair of strikeouts. But the Lancers’ Alese Smith laced a single up the middle to start the second, and that was the spark the team needed to plate five runs. Alana McCormick’s RBI single made it 2-0, and Ava Sadar followed with a two-run single that put the Lancers up, 4-0.
Two batters later, Lancers left fielder Zaynah Farole — one of just two seniors on the roster along with Dunn — plated a run with a groundout, and junior shortstop Emily Cannon followed with a run-scoring bloop single down the right-field line to give Holy Cross a 6-0 lead.
“It was a long bus ride, but I think we had an advantage batting first because we had the energy in the first inning and we scored a run. We kept that same energy the next few innings,” said Farole, of Delanco. “I feel like we were a little shaky (at the start) because of last year, but we were confident that we could win.”
“We expected (a fast start). Even my assistant coach, we were doing the batting lineup today and he was like, ‘I have a feeling.’ He had a feeling they were going to come out and do exactly what they just did,” Pietrow said. “Our preparation for this game really took us where we needed to. We worked on our timing and making adjustments in the box. We felt prepared going into this game offensively, and Jamie was getting it done (inside the circle), so that made it easy for my defense.”
Dunn actually had a perfect game heading into the fifth inning before Holy Spirit junior shortstop Madison Berry broke it up with a clean single to left. Josie Long followed with a single, and senior Frankie Lane drove in Spirit’s first run with a single to center. But Dunn worked out of the jam with a groundout and a pair of strikeouts. She allowed another run in the bottom of the sixth on three straight singles, but again avoided more trouble by inducing an inning-ending groundout. She then set down the Spartans in order in the seventh to seal the victory.
“We all just focused on making one play at a time,” Dunn said. “We knew that if we just kept making the simple plays we were going to get through it.”
Pietrow said the long layoff — the Lancers hadn’t played in two weeks because of a bye and a forfeit in the first two rounds of sectionals — was difficult for the team to navigate.
“It was really tough. In those two weeks, we tried to get as many games before playoffs as we could, and we lost three straight, which is really tough. And they had prom and graduation, so it was very hard getting them back on track,” she said. “But the last two days, we really hunkered down, and I’m incredibly proud of this group and what they’ve been able to do. I told them today, ‘come out and play for the person next to you.’ And that’s exactly what they did.”
WHAT’S NEXT: No. 3 Holy Cross Prep at No. 1 St. Joseph Academy in the Non-Public B South championship game on Thursday at 4 p.m.
