WOODBRIDGE—Inning after inning, the Cheshire High coaching staff pounded one piece of advice into their Rams softball team.
Get your timing down, the coaches preached. Just get your timing down.
Finally, junior lead-off hitter Jordan McCue did just that.
McCue led off the top of the 11th inning with the hardest hit ball of the day—a simple line drive single to center field—and later scored from third base on a passed ball, giving No. 1 Cheshire a thrilling 1-0 win over No. 4 Amity on Monday afternoon.
“I knew I had to come up big for my team, especially (Cheshire starting pitcher Jenica Matos),” McCue said. “So, I just went in there with more confidence, instead of being inside my head. I was thinking about all the other times I’ve helped out my team and this time wasn’t any different.”
After McCue singled, she immediately went to swipe second. A high throw into center field then allowed her to advance to third.
While Amity starting pitcher Gabby Celozzi would fan the next two batters and get out of the inning with a ground out to third, one unfortunate passed ball allowed McCue to scamper home from home, giving Cheshire a 1-0 lead.
Against Matos, who was once again brilliant throwing a two-hitter with a career-high 25 strikeouts, the Spartans came up with 11 innings of zeroes of the scoreboard.
“The energy from both dugouts, it actually really fired me up and stuff,” Matos said. “And my team, I have a lot of trust in them. I knew I had to get the job done and eventually it all came together in that last inning.”
After Amity flied out to Cheshire’s senior right fielder Julia Miller, who made a couple of nice plays out there, to open the bottom of the inning, Matos notched her 24th and 25th strikeouts of the game to clinch the victory.
Equal to the task, however, was Celozzi, who fanned 21 batters over the 11-inning affair.
“She was incredible,” Amity coach Amanda Acampora said of her junior hurler. “She gave it everything she had against a very good team.”
Over the course of the 11 innings, each team had chances to steal the single run that would win the game.
Both teams left runners stranded in the first as Cheshire’s Tai Bird drew a two-out walk while Amity’s Alexx Reinwald led off with a ground ball to single through the hole to left field.
Both would be stranded there.
In the top of the fourth, Cheshire’s Molly Fleming had a two-out single. She then stole second to get into scoring position, but Celozzi notched a strikeout to escape the jam.
In the bottom half of the inning, Amity put a runner on third. Angelina Charbonneau led off with a walk and stole second. On a groundout by Morgan Luddy, Charbonneau moved up to third base. This time it was Matos’ turn to strand a Spartans’ runner in scoring positioning, getting a strikeout and inducing an infield popup.
In the fifth, it was Cheshire’s turn again. A walk by Olivia Rydzy preceded a pair of fielder’s choices. With two runners on, however, Celozzi buckled down and two strikeouts ended the threat.
Amity got a runner into scoring position again in the bottom of the eighth. Emily Cewe had a two-out single and moved up to second when Riannie De Jesus Vasquez walked. Another “K” by Matos ended the inning.
Cheshire’s Addison Coffey singled with two outs in the 10th and stole second to no avail, as well.
That left it up to McCue in the top of the 11th.
“She’s such a gritty player,” Cheshire coach Kristina Drust said of her lead-off hitter. “One of the things we said in our huddle is that I asked her how she did that; how’d she come about getting her mind right after her failures and her team failures to be able to do such a thing? And she said, ‘Because I put my selfishness and my failures aside and I was thinking about my pitcher and I needed to figure it out for my pitcher.’”
Cheshire, which improved to 11-1 with the win, was named the No. 1 in the state, according to the GametimeCT poll that was released earlier Monday.
Amity, which was ranked fourth and came into the game undefeated, slipped to 8-1.
“I was so proud of how my kids played,” said Acampora.
The game had a playoff feel to it and both coaches walked away knowing their teams got a lot out of it.
“Honestly, I just hugged the head coach at the end of the game. Both of our teams deserved to win that game,” Drust said. “We really did. It came down to a hit and one play at the end of the day. But with teams like this, this game is invited in. We want games like this, right? We want to prepare this way. Both teams have postseason visions, right? And you need games like this under your belt to be able to play your best and prepare your best. So, I know that we’re taking a lot out of it for sure.”
Cheshire will play six-time defending Class L champion Masuk on Wednesday in a special game at the University of Connecticut’s Burrill Family Field. First pitch is slated for 5:30 p.m.
Amity travels to North Haven for a 7 p.m. game the same day.
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