St. Joseph by the Sea players are all smiles after winning the CHSAA state title with a 3-2 win over Molloy. (Philip Hall)
St. Joseph by the Sea can finally celebrate.
The Vikings went about this season in business-like fashion, dispatching every opponent in the opposite dugout. There were no wild cheering displays, tears of joy or dog piles after they won the CHSAA Staten Island, Archdiocesan and New York City titles. Sea has won those many times before. But there was only one CHSAA state softball championship banner in the Huguenot school’s gym, from 2000, even though the core of this team had come so close before.
Now, there will be two.
“All we kept talking about was a banner,” said catcher Sammi Lou Anastasio, a four year varsity player. “Right now it doesn’t feel real. Especially my senior year to finally end it with a bang is amazing.”
It didn’t come easy. St. Joseph by the Sea had to survive a seventh-inning rally in semifinal win over St. John the Baptist and another in a 3-2 victory against Archbishop Molloy in the final Tuesday at SUNY Old Westbury to complete a 29-0 season. With two on and two outs, ace Amanda Barrese got Julia Lipovac to ground a ball to Kristina Mazzarisi at short and her throw was scooped by first baseman Laura Leone at first for the final out.
“I was just like, ‘Oh my god we just won the states,’” Barrese said.
This time around there were plenty of smiles, cheers, and even two Gatorade baths. The players got head coach Mike Ponsiglione. He then returned the favor as they posed for pictures with the championship plaque.
“We all said we needed to cheer because we never had a big celebration,” Anastasio said.
Molloy, which Sea beat in run-rule fashion twice during the season, almost put it on hold. The Vikings (21-0) had extended their lead to 3-1 on a two-out RBI single by Mazzarisi in the top of the sixth, after Megan Seaman singled and stole a base. Sabina DiLorenzo led off the bottom of the seventh with a ringing double and scored on a two-out single from Melissa Kump to put runners on first second before Lipovac’s groundout. It ended a game that was delayed in fourth inning for nearly an hour because of lighting and rain.
The Vikings scored twice in the fifth when Jackie Bonamassa put down a bunt and Molloy first baseman Dana Moss threw high to second. The ball rolled to the wall, allowing Bonamassa and Jackie Cautela, who allowed three runs on six hits in the semifinal, to score. Victoria Goldbach, who scattered 10 hits against Sea, drove in the first Molloy (16-3) run in the fifth to make it 2-1.
“I had to get the bunt down,” Bonamassa said.
It was a day of putting to rest some demons for Sea. It beat St. John the Baptist, 4-3, in the semifinals. The Cougars had beaten the Vikings in the final three times in the last four years, including the last two. Former ace Olivia Galati, now at Hofstra, was even there to watch. Barrese came on in relief of Cautela to strand the tying run at first with no outs.
Maria Scopellito was 5-for-8 with two runs scored over two games. Toni-Ann Canova homered to dead centerfield at St. Thomas the Apostle to lead off the fourth that included a Mazzarisi RBI triple to give Sea a 3-1 lead against SJB (18-5). Jackie Kelly, who was 4-for-8 on the day, drove in what proved to be the winning run in the top of the seventh.
“It’s a culmination of something they talked about from the first day of fall workouts,” Ponsiglione said. “Forget about when we started in March. The minute we lost to Baptist last year they were talking about getting back here this year.”
It’s a season and team no one will soon forget, especially after it is rightfully honored at the school.
“It’s going to be great walking into our gym and seeing our banner with all our names on it,” Mazzarisi said. “They can’t take that away from us.”