By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
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HAMMONTON — One swing of the bat ended the South Jersey Group 3 semifinal matchup between Clearview Regional and Hammonton on Tuesday afternoon.
Unfortunately for the host and second-seeded Blue Devils, it wasn’t a walk-off hit, but rather a game-ending, line-drive double play turned by Clearview shortstop Ella Redheffer.
With one out in the bottom of the seventh and runners at first and second, Redheffer snared a liner off the bat of Hammonton junior catcher Hannah Hines that seemed destined for center field, stepped on second base and preserved a 2-1 victory that puts Clearview into the sectional title game for the second straight year.
Last season, the Pioneers suffered a heartbreaking 4-3, nine-inning loss to Delsea Regional. This time around, No. 3 Clearview will have to go on the road and beat top-seeded Ocean City — a 7-1 winner over Delsea in the other semifinal — on Thursday in order to take home the title.
“I knew I had to trust my defense. I knew I had to have full confidence in them this game,” said Clearview senior pitcher Sienna Garrison. “I didn’t get a lot of strikeouts, but that’s OK because my defense did exactly what they needed to do — especially that last play by Ella. I just tried to mix it up a lot so they wouldn’t know what was coming.”
“If you’ve never watched softball, this was a great softball game that was fun to watch. It was an exciting game, a close game — and a good game played by both teams,” said Pioneers coach Matt Schneider. “We rely on our bats a lot and (Hammonton pitcher Lylianna Sobocinsk) kept us off balanced, had us popping a lot of balls up. We knew if we could get the ball down on the ground we’d have a good chance to put a couple of runs on the board.”
Clearview (18-8, 14-4 Tri-County Royal) struck for a pair of runs in the top of the fourth, both of which came after Sobocinsk recorded the first two outs in quick fashion. Grace Redheffer laced a single to left and came all the way around to score from first on a double down the left-field line by fellow senior Gabby Capri.
“I knew we could do it. We always play calm, we always play relaxed, and that’s when we play our best. We came out here with a lot of energy today and when we have a lot of energy we feel like we can beat any team. After seeing all the girls go through the lineup, I was hunting a low-and-in pitch and I was able to tuck it down the third-base line. I feel like when we get the momentum by scoring first, nothing can really stop us,” Capri said. “We haven’t really played (Hammonton) in a while so we just wanted to bring our best energy and play our best game. We saw (Sobocinck) and we knew we had to start laying off the high pitches and the change-up.”
“That was a huge momentum shift,” Garrison added. “It shifted to us and that gave me a lot more confidence.”
Capri came around to score on Mallory Engle’s single to left to make it 2-0, but Hammonton (22-5, 12-0 Cape-Atlantic League National) responded in the sixth when Layla Cuneo-Snouffer drove in Hines with a groundout to third. The Blue Devils put two more runners on, but Garrison worked out of the jam by getting another groundout. Garrison fanned just two, but also walked only two and worked around seven Blue Devils hits.
“Sienna is our ace,” Schneider said. “Last year, and this year, she was first-team all-division (in the Tri-County Conference) for us. She’s a senior, she wanted the ball — she said, ‘I’m taking the ball,’ and she took us the whole way. Kudos to her, she had an awesome outing.”
The Pioneers are playing well at the right time of year, as they’ve won three straight and 5-of-7 dating back to the middle of May. In those five wins they’ve outscored opponents 31-13.
“We just like to keep things loose. We play better when we play loose instead of tensing up. We were here last year and we were that tense team. Early this year we were down in some big games but came back to win in the seventh inning, so we know how to win now. We don’t tense up now when the game gets tight,” Schneider said. “We graduated two starters from last year, both outfielders, and we replaced them with two freshmen outfielders. And in a game like this they just stepped up and did what they had to do — put the ball in play and don’t let the nerves get to them. That’s a credit to our senior leadership, they got the girls together and told them to focus on what they can control, go out there and play the game and just see who can get to 21 outs first.”
Capril said she and the other seniors are thrilled to suit up in the hunter green-and-gold at least one more time.
“It’s very exciting because this could have been our last game,” she said, “but instead we get to play at least one more. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, we know if we bring our energy we can beat any team.”
WHAT’S NEXT: No. 3 Clearview Regional at No. 1 Ocean City for the South Jersey Group 3 championship, Thursday, time TBD. Hammonton’s season is complete.
