EAST LANSING — Compared to the early stretch of Dearborn Divine Child’s run through the MHSAA softball tournament, Thursday’s battle against Gaylord was a whole new ballgame.
After cruising through the district, regional and quarter-final rounds outscoring five opponents by a combined count of 81-3, things got a lot tougher when the Falcons had to face the state’s No. 1-ranked team in the Division 2 semi-finals at Michigan State University on Thursday.
“We knew that this was going to be ‘the game,’ and we knew we had to play our game, inning-by-inning,” Divine Child coach Regina Dunn said. “We prepared for this game, and I don’t think we would have done anything differently.”
Despite taking an early lead against the Blue Devils, two solo home runs powered Gaylord to a 2-1 win, which ended Divine Child’s season. The Falcons, who finished 28-8, were the last Catholic High School League team standing in the state playoff tournament.
Divine Child wasn’t state-ranked, yet the Falcons proved they were capable of playing at MSU’s Secchia Stadium.
“I’m just so proud of our team, that we’ve made it to this point, to be able to play here and just play against this team and hang with them — it’s a great experience,” sophomore pitcher Jessica Nelson said. “Nobody really thought our team would be here, and we proved them wrong.”
Divine Child struck first, taking a one-run lead in the top of the second inning. Avery Schellenberger and Isa DePaulis drew back-to-back walks, and Allison Surella drove Schellenberger home with a single up the gap between first and second base.
The Falcons might have gone up 2-0, but DePaulis was thrown out at home on a double-steal attempt.
Meanwhile, Gaylord (38-2) evened the score on a lead-off homer inside the left-field foul pole by Abby Radulski, and took the lead for good when Ferris State commit Alexis Kozlowski led off the bottom of the fifth by drilling Nelson’s first pitch over the wall in right-center field.
That was Gaylord’s 70th home run of the season, tying the all-time record set two years ago by South Lyon East. The Blue Devils have a chance to break the mark in Saturday’s championship game against Vicksburg (a 4-2 winner over Richmond in Thursday’s other semifinal).
“We knew that they were going to be a good-hitting team, so we wanted to keep them in the park and play good defense, and we did that — we just needed one hit,” Dunn said. “We were there; it really only takes one hit to crack it open.”
Although Divine Child outhit Gaylord 6-5, they came up short in their effort to push the tying run across in the top of the sixth. Schellenberger reached base with a drive just inside the left field line, and moved up following DePaulis’ single to short. Schellenberger went to third on Surella’s sacrifice fly and DePaulis stole second, but the inning ended after Gaylord brought in Aubrey Jones to pitch out of the jam and she struck out the last batter of the inning.
The Falcons had one more shot at knotting up the game, but went down in succession in the seventh. Claire Edgell couldn’t beat out an attempt at a bunt single, and Katherine Modrzejewski and Savina Olada struck out, but not before working the count up to six and eight pitches, respectively.
“They put it all out there. Let me tell you, I was so proud of these kids,” Dunn said. “They were on auto-pilot. They took over, they brought the energy. They did that in the quarters, they did that today — they left it all out here.”
Divine Child, the finalist in the Catholic League tournament this spring, won the Class B state title in 1975 and was runner-up in 1998. The Falcons last appeared in the state semifinals five seasons ago.
“I knew we could always do it — we just had to work together as a team. We knew it if we were just playing together and playing as one, stringing hits together and taking it game-by-game,” Nelson said. “We always write ‘together’ on our arms just so we can look at it if we’re getting down on ourselves, we’re always playing together.”
Divine Child graduates six players in its starting lineup — DePaulis, Edgell, Hannah Kramp, Olada, Schellenberger and Surella — but returns its battery in Nelson (a sophomore) and catcher Madison Mosier (a junior).
“It hurts a lot — nobody comes out here to lose. Gaylord was ranked No. 1, but we don’t look at the rankings because we rarely get ranked or noticed,” Dunn said. “We came here to play our kind of ball. We are close, we know we need to do, and we just keep going to work.”
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