Cardinals fall to Crimson Tide in D1 semis

MANCHESTER – The Bishop Guertin High School softball team already took out one member of the Division I royalty this playoff season.

It was another one that did the Cardinals in Friday afternoon.

Coming off an upset of No. 1 Salem, ninth-seeded Bishop Guertin went toe-to-toe with No. 4 Concord before the Crimson Tide scored the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning for a 2-1 victory in the Division I semifinals at Southern New Hampshire University.

The Tide (17-4) now move on to the final, where they’ll face No. 2 Alvirne at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at SNHU.

For the Cardinals (10-11), it was the end to an incredible run for a team that lost its last three games heading into the postseason. But Bishop Guertin knocked off No. 8 Dover on the road and then beat the defending-champion Blue Devils on their own field.

“Anyone who can go to Salem and beat Salem, I have respect for them,” Concord coach Duke Sawyer said. “They had a great run, to come up as a nine-seed. They’ve been on the road the whole time. We weren’t taking them lightly.”

The Tide had reason to after Bishop Guertin beat them during the regular season, 3-1. On Friday, Cardinals starter Lauren Bingham matched Concord pitchers Kelsey Martel and Katelyn Kennard pitch for pitch to the final inning.

“We battled,” Bishop Guertin coach Myia Yates said. “We had our chances.”

The Cardinals did, leaving the bases loaded three times, including once with top hitter Jacklyn Dubois at the plate. Dubois also came up with two on and one out in the top of the seventh, when Sawyer elected to walk her.

“She’s a great hitter, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “That’s why we walked her. We can’t let their best hitter beat us.”

For a while, it looked like the Tide were going to get the win without any of their hitters doing much damage. Concord got on the board in the bottom of the third, scoring an unearned run with two outs. The Tide could have had more, but Bingham struck out Rachel Boynton with two runners on to limit the damage.

Concord managed just three base runners after that, as Bingham struck out seven and faced just 25 batters.

“We just could not time her,” Sawyer said.

“Lauren has a great drop pitch,” Yates said. “She’s not overpowering with her speed, but she has a lot of offspeed stuff. Her four-year career at BG, she’s worked so hard to get where she’s at. She’s done a lot for this team and this program.”

Bingham helped the Cardinals only run in the top of the seventh. Kathryn Soraghan led off the inning with a single and Bingham laid down a near-perfect bunt, beating the throw to first. But Soraghan got a little greedy and was thrown out trying to take third.

Jessica Lemos followed with a single and Laura Robertson hit a fly ball down the left field line. Martel, who moved to left when Kennard came in to pitch in the top of the sixth, couldn’t get to the ball in time, and Bingham came around from second to tie the game.

After a groundout moved the runners up, Sawyer opted to have Dubois walked and Kenzie McCabe struck out to end the inning.

“We needed to score and that’s what this team had done the last four or five games,” Yates said. “When we’ve needed to score, we’ve scored.”

It didn’t take long for Concord to get the lead back, and win the game. Amy Morin led off the bottom of the seventh with a fly ball over the head of MacKenzie Marr in center field. Morin stretch the hit into a triple, and the throw to third was wild, allowing Morin to come home with the winning run.

“We’re going to make them throw it to third,” Sawyer said. “Lucky for us, they threw it away into deadball territory. That was the break of the game.”