Madison “The Mighty Masher” McMillan launched a triple and single, while also walking twice as Central Whidbey Little League rolled to a win Saturday in its district playoff opener. (Jackie Saia photo)
The bottom of the third inning changed everything.
One moment, the Central Whidbey Little League Majors softball team trailed visiting Sedro-Woolley by three runs Saturday in a district playoff game, the next moment it was cruising to a 12-5 win.
Sparked by a grandiose triple off the bat of Madison McMillan, fueled by smart, inventive base-running, and capped by a note-perfect bunt single from Allison Nastali, the frame was a game-changer.
And, with the win, the Hammerheads not only improve to 16-2, but move a win away from punching their ticket to the state tourney.
Central Whidbey rests Sunday, while Sedro and Skagit play a loser-out game at Coupeville’s Rhododendron Park.
The survivor of that contest advances to the championship round of the District 11 tournament, but will have to beat CWLL twice to qualify for state.
The Hammerheads just need one win on their home turf — either Monday or Tuesday night — and they’re off to the big dance.
The first pitch Monday will be fired at 6 PM.
Tuesday’s game, which is only necessary if Central Whidbey loses Monday, would repeat that start time.
Saturday, the Hammerheads might not have been perfect, but they played fairly flawlessly when it mattered most.
Sedro, coming off a big win Friday against Skagit, pushed two runs across in the top of the first, but Central shortstop Taylor Brotemarkle snuffed the rally with a sweet defensive play.
Going to her knees to trap a hot shot back up the middle, she sprung back up and lunged while charging forward, slapping the tag on the bag to beat the incoming runner by half a shoelace.
That lit a fire under her squad, with Hammerhead pitcher Chloe Marzocca promptly rearing back and closing the inning with a wham-bam-go-sit-down-ma’am strikeout of the next hitter.
It took Central a moment or two to figure out the Sedro pitcher, and how best to stay on the positive side of a somewhat abrasive home plate ump.
The Hammerheads scraped out a single run in both the first and second, knotting things back up at 2-2, but were derailed in both innings by said ump calling out runners for fairly innocuous infractions.
The first run came courtesy a booming ground-rule double by lethal lead-off hitter Savina Wells, followed by a bunt single dropped with precision by Mia Farris.
Brotemarkle came back around to kick off the chain of events which resulted in the second run.
While she struck out, which would have left the Hammerheads in a two-out, no-one-on-base hole in the bottom of the second, the ball skidded off the Sedro catcher’s glove.
After jumping approximately 10 feet in the air, Brotemarkle took off for first like a runaway rabbit dodging a hungry bear, beating the throw as her mom, coaching at the bag, did a double fist pump.
After that, Jada Heaton slapped a chopper off the first-baseman’s glove for a single, Katie Marti eked out a walk, before Wells came though with a scorcher of an RBI single.
The lanky Coupeville 6th grader pasted the ball with a vengeance, tattooing Sedro’s third-baseman with a low, screaming liner, and it looked like the Hammerheads were about to explode.
Enter the ump, and exit the rally.
A somewhat questionable call from an ump who likes to hear himself talk erased what would have been a Mia Farris single, and prematurely ended the inning.
That set up Sedro for its moment in the (blazing) sun, but the visitors didn’t get as much as they might have hoped.
They scored three in the top of the third to take a 5-2 lead, but it was little more than a mirage.
McMillan, patrolling right field, speared a ball that had extra bases written on it (apparently in erasable pencil…), Central escaped without too many feathers ruffled, and Sedro got ready to fall off the face of a cliff.
It didn’t come all in one play, but slowly, steadily, as Central Whidbey asserted itself, hit after walk after strong defensive play.
In between, the Sedro coach got into an argument with one of her fans, and tried to get said fan ejected from the premises, while Central coach Fred Farris calmly sipped water in his dugout and impersonated a cool cucumber.
Maybe he knew what was coming, maybe he’s just a good poker player.
The deluge started with McMillan, who knows that when you produce raw power, it involves making the softball frequently say “ow.”
Turning on a pitch like the heir to recently graduated CHS sluggers Veronica Crownover and Sarah Wright, McMillan, aka “The Mighty Masher,” beat the ever-livin’ snot out of the ball.
Her missile launch to left rose majestically, landed with a thump, and was still drawing “oohs” and “ahs” as she rumbled into third for a stand-up triple.
Central Whidbey was still down three runs at that moment, but all the air promptly went out of Sedro.
From there, the Hammerheads, a bold team on the base-paths, used their nimble toes to run the life out of the visitors.
McMillan scored on a passed ball, diving under the tag, while Marzocca, who walked in the next at-bat, evaded a tag on the base-paths on an ensuing steal.
With her pitcher having worked her way to third, Nastali dropped an RBI bunt single that was note-perfect (and almost as entertaining as dad Robert later juggling cookies in mid-air while trying, and failing, to snag a foul ball).
A double steal knotted the game at 5-5, before back-to-back passed balls allowed two more Hammerheads to scoot home.
While Sedro eventually escaped the inning, all its hopes and dreams on this day were slowly melting under an unforgiving sun.
Marzocca and Co. held their foes at bay in the second half, tossing three straight scoreless innings of work on the scoreboard from the fourth through the sixth.
Central Whidbey got nice defensive snags from Nastali, Farris, Brotemarkle, and Marti, and several laser throws from Blouin at third as they clamped down as a team.
“No one here is going to track and field, no one! There’s only one spring sport from now on, and it’s softball,” said Coupeville High School softball coach Kevin McGranahan, grinning while watching the slick glove work.
While the play in the field was lights out, the Hammerheads also got creative at the plate.
Blouin plated a run with a perfectly-placed RBI ground-out, while Brotemarkle matched her with a one-of-a-kind RBI bloop single.
The Hammerhead shortstop topped the ball, sent it gently skyward, then somehow, against all the rules of nature, got it to come to a complete stop in mid-air, then roll backward (still in mid-air), before crashing back to Earth in a two-inch safe place between the pitcher and three infielders.
That wasn’t the last run of the day — Blouin would do some more damage as Central tacked on its final two scores — but it was a perfect punctuation mark.
The Hammerheads finished in style, whacking 11 hits, walking 11 times, and seeing all 12 of their players reach base at least once.
Wells (2B, 1B, 1B), McMillan (3B, 1B), and Mia Farris (1B, 1B) led the hit parade, with Blouin, Heaton, Nastali, and Brotemarkle all adding a base-knock apiece.
McMillan, Teagan Calkins, Mayleen Weatherford, and Aleksia Jump each walked twice.
Central’s battery was in especially fine form Saturday, as Marzocca whiffed nine, and Wells, who only joined the team recently, caught and called a fairly flawless game.
“I don’t think Savina let a single ball get past her today,” Fred Farris said. “She caught basically a perfect game, and that was while calling almost all the pitches herself.
“I don’t remember ever seeing that as a coach.”
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