Prep softball: Marin Catholic’s Malen wins epic pitchers’ duel in MCAL final

Each of the first two times Marin Catholic’s Rose Malen and Redwood High’s Sadie Leonard faced each other this year, extra innings were required to determine a winner.

Leonard and Redwood won a pair of intense pitchers’ duels in the regular season.

Round Three came in the MCAL softball championship game at San Marin High on Friday night. With the stakes even higher, Malen and Leonard dueled for so long that needing to shut the lights off, suspend the game and resume play on Saturday became a very realistic possibility.

MC’s Gracyn Lovette drove in the game’s only run in the top of the 10th inning – with the international tiebreaker, runner-on-second rule in effect – then Malen capped a masterful performance by getting the final three outs as Marin Catholic won the pennant with a 1-0 victory.

“It was awesome,” Malen said of the victory. “Ten innings, it was a lot but it was a great game. … I was ready to go for as long as it took. I wanted the win for sure.”

Malen limited San Rafael to one run over nine innings in Wednesday’s semifinal and was arguably even better against Redwood (20-6) in the final. Malen allowed just one hit, issued a couple of walks and struck out 17 hitters.

“All credit to Rose,” Lovette said. “We couldn’t have won this game without her. Any game all year, she’s been a staple.”

Leonard allowed three hits, issued two walks and struck out 20 hitters to hold up her end of the bargain. Leonard struck out the side in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, at one point striking out seven consecutive batters.

“To me it’s just crazy that you could play a team three times and have three games like that,” MC coach Dave Albini said. “I mean you have to give credit to Redwood. Yes we won tonight but those two teams are so evenly matched and they have such a great squad. It’s too bad that one of the teams had to lose tonight.”

With the wind blowing in at San Marin and the caliber of starting pitching involved, the chances of many runs being scored always seemed low. MC (19-3) got runners as far as second base just twice in the first nine innings and Redwood got a runner to third after Katie Connors hit a leadoff double to deep center field in the bottom of the fourth.

Once the 10th inning rolled around, both teams started with a runner at second base. In both regular-season games, Redwood emerged victorious by bunting the runner over to third quickly then bringing her home.

MC’s Josie Politzer started the inning on second base — about 10 minutes before the lights at San Marin would be required to shut off around 9 p.m. —  and immediately took third on a passed ball.

“Knowing that pretty much getting contact on the ball would probably score her I think helped me be confident up there,” Lovette said.

Lovette, the MCAL Player of the Year in basketball, came up with the biggest play of the title game by drilling a single toward third base to finally break the deadlock.

“We talked about getting deep in the box, choking up on the bat, shortening our swings because we just can’t go up there and strike out every time,” Albini said. “We have to put the ball in play and make them make plays. We did strike out a lot still but we did a little better putting balls in play so I’m not surprised because Gracyn was one of the girls who really did well in practice shortening up, choking up, and hitting balls in the batting cage.”

Leonard escaped the inning without further damage – after Lovette stole second and third – by racking up her 19th and 20th strikeouts of the evening.

Redwood was unable to move its runner to third during its first at-bat, a bunt that was caught in foul territory by Kilee Koch. Ashley Weingart dropped down a sacrifice bunt to move the runner to third with two outs. Malen got Leonard to pop out to Lovette in foul territory to close out the game.

“I was trying not to trip on the base but besides that I’m confident in my fielding skills and it was a pretty routine catch,” Lovette said. “Just getting the ball in the glove and being able to celebrate after was awesome.”

Lauren Osheroff and Malen had the other two hits for MC.

Marin Cathoic earns an automatic berth into the North Coast Section Division II playoffs. Redwood is also expected to be in the mix when brackets are revealed on Sunday.