DETROIT — Brock Dunn has been head of the 300-student Upper School at Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett for four years.

In July, he’ll assume the presidency of the 1,200-student K-12 Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas.

This spring, he volunteered to fill the coaching vacancy for Liggett’s softball squad, making the celebration Tuesday afternoon of the school’s first-ever Catholic League championship all the more special.

“Naw, I’m still going to Little Rock,” he laughed.

The Knights were forced into extra innings to claim a dramatic 8-7 victory against Macomb Lutheran North, the defending Cardinal (Intersectional 1 & 2) titlists from 2019. The pandemic obliterated the 2020 season.

Ninth-grader Victoria Nugent led Liggett’s charge with her arm and her bat (2 hits, 5 runs batted in). She and center fielder Safiya Butler knocked in a pair of runs apiece in a four-run fourth inning that provided the Knights with a 5-3 lead.

In the decisive eighth inning, her sharp two-run single up the middle drove in what turned out to be the eventual winning margin.

However, her most meaningful contribution came an inning earlier, at the painful expense of North’s hurler, Olivia Dryke, a vicious line drive into her masked countenance. The ball caromed into short right field, allowing a run to score.

Dryke walked off in tears. An athletic trainer from the University of Detroit Mercy, where the game was played, checked her out. She returned in the bottom of the inning with a vengeance, smacking the ball over the right fielder’s head against the fence to ignite the Mustangs’ three-run rally. Reese Shock and Reagan Ruatto followed up with RBI singles to tie the game at 6-6 and force overtime.

After the game, Dryke, sporting a swollen left cheek and small cut, joined the chorus of well-wishers. “Thank God for the mask,” she said.

Nugent gave up 17 hits, but she was invincible when she had to be, yielding just three hits and stranding eight runners during innings 4-6.

In the seventh, after the Mustangs tied the score and threatened with two on base and only one out, Nugent enticed inning-ending pop-ups.

Lutheran North came into the game 23-1-1 (15-0 versus CHSL opponents). Liggett was 14-9.

“They had whipped us four times during the season,” Dunn said. “This is pretty cool. I’m proud of them. They’ll be able to share the excitement the boys had in winning their Catholic League title (2-1 over Marine City Cardinal Mooney).”

Mercy has none for Cabrini

Perhaps the Farmington Hills Mercy softball squad should be renamed “Mercy-less.”

The Marlins (25-3; 15-0 in the CHSL) routinely took care of Allen Park Cabrini (14-9; 9-8 CHSL) 10-zip for the Bishop (Central Division) trophy. Mercy had won three earlier meetings by a combined score of 19-4.

The Marlins erupted for five runs in the third inning. Junior third baseman Kendall Spivey smoked a line drive over the right-center field fence (her eighth of the year) with Izzy Chaput and Maggie Murphy on base. Asia Barbato and Sabrina Shea each singled and crossed home plate on ground ball outs by Kat Burras and Morgan Rood.

A lead-off triple by shortstop Grace Nieto, singles by Chaput and Barbato, and three errors by the Cabrini defense increased the advantage to 9-0 in the fourth.

The game was called in the fifth when Chaput’s double scored Nieto who had singled.

Senior Mackenzie Noah, committed to Taylor University in Indiana in the fall, absorbed the brunt of Mercy’s 11-hit barrage.

Barbato gave up three hits and struck out seven for her 17th win. She has recorded 178 strikeouts in 99 innings.

The win was Mercy’s seventh CHSL title in history, the first since 2016.

First-year coach Corey Burras attributes Mercy’s success to “great coaches, great players, and a great school. I’m just happy to be part of this institution.”

Having Nieto (Northwestern) at shortstop and Murphy (Miami of Ohio) at second base “makes my job easier,” Burras said. “They provide leadership in the tradition of Mercy softball.”

Nieto is batting .557 with 54 hits, 52 runs scored, and 36 stolen bases.

Murphy‘s .500 average includes 10 triples, 12 home runs and 56 RBI.

Contact Don Horkey at [email protected].