The final out is always the hardest to get, but the St. Luke's softball team did not know exactly how hard until Tuesday. The Storm led 8-5 against Greens Farms Academy and were a strike away from picking up only their second league win in what has been a rebuilding year.
Starting pitcher Janay Parrott was tiring in the top of the seventh, but St. Luke's had no other available pitchers. Greens Farms' Brooke Cirillo would not give in to Parrott, fouling off three pitches and working the count full. Cirillo worked a walk to keep her team alive.
That mental victory opened the floodgates for the Lady Dragons. Before the inning was over, Greens Farms would not only take its first lead of the game but it also sent 17 batters to the plate and scored an incredible 12 two-out runs to take an 18-8 lead. St. Luke's pushed across three runs in its last at bat, but it was too little, too late, as Greens Farms stunned the Storm, 18-11.
"For six inning we played great. We just couldn't finish," St. Luke's captain Megan Flood said. "We've improved so much over the season, and we were playing very smart softball today. The pressure and the realization we were so close to winning got into our heads, I think. We just kind of got overcome by our emotions."
Until the wild seventh inning, St. Luke's had dominated the game. The Storm jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the first on RBI hits by Maria Carlucci and Sasha Clark. Carlucci drove in three runs on the day, including a two-run single in the fifth that looked to be the game-winner at the time.
The St. Luke's fielders could only watch helplessly as Parrott struggled to find the strike zone. When she threw strikes, the Greens Farms batters kept finding holes and driving in runs. It was perhaps the biggest heartbreak in a season that has seen plenty of it.
With three games remaining, St. Luke's (3-8) will host Greenwich Academy on Thursday.
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