Jessica Diaz heeded her coach’s advice and sung a song in her mind while she was in the circle.
“I had a little iPod in my head just playing on shuffle and I would try to pitch to the beat,” the Queens HS of Teaching junior said. “I was hearing all Taylor Swift songs.”
Diaz, who was given the idea by coach Ayette Carrasco, said the music became louder in the sixth as Telecommunications was rallying with no one out. Despite the Yellow Jackets scoring four times she kept her cool and got QHST out of the inning with a three-run lead.
“It came in handy,” Diaz said. “As they got closer they were getting louder. It helped me tune them out and focus on what we have to do.”
What she did was pitch No. 11 QHST to a 7-4 upset over No. 3 Telecom, the league runner-up a year ago, in the PSAL Class B softball quarterfinals at St. Patrick’s Field in Brooklyn. It is the Tigers’ first trip to the semifinals since it won the ‘B’ title in 2007. There, they’ll meet No. 7 Lab Museum at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at a site to be determined.
“You should have seen us two years ago,” Carrasco said. “In 2008 it was like let’s start this over again. Last year was another step. This year they are really surprising with how much they improved.”
Diaz, one of the team’s captains, has been a big reason why. She allowed just six hits, four coming in the sixth, struck out three and walked five. She also drive in a run with a single in the third to help give the Tigers, who have just two seniors, a 2-0 lead against Telecom’s Liza Acevedo.
The Yellow Jackets (18-2), who scored double-digit runs in 17 games this season, scored in the fourth on a Stacy Aquino run-scoring single, but QHST (16-2) exploded for five in the sixth to grab a commanding 7-1 lead, while taking advantage of some bad decisions in the field by Telecom.
“That’s only because we have made the same mistakes in the past,” Carrasco said. “You learn from them and tell them we have to do other people what they have done to us.”
Diaz drove a run in with bunt and Jamie Estrada had an RBI single. Leah Mejil brought home a run with a fielder’s choice and Megan Byrnes provided an RBI ground out in the frame. Telecommunications answered quickly. Acevedo provided an RBI triple, Aquino singled home another run and Taylor Capone walked with the bases loaded with one out to make it 7-4.
“We knew we could get the three outs,” Mejil said. “We had to pace ourselves and breathe. I think we were rushing too much.”
The sophomore third baseman was the end of a 1-2-5 double play to stymie the threat and caught the final out of the seventh, a pop up in foul ground. Mejil fell to the turf in joy as her teammates celebrated.
“It was so exciting,” she said. “I felt like we won the whole thing.”
They’ve given themselves a chance to again.