Notre Dame-Belmont Tigers tamed in softball title game

Despite the loss, the disparity between the nearly-500 Notre Dame-Belmont study body and the nearly 2,500-strong Alvarez population was not lost on NDB head coach Kelly McDonald.

“We’re a school with under 500 (students) in it. These are the 15 softball players in the school. … We’re competing against huge public schools,” McDonald said. “We’ve gone way above and beyond (to make the Division I final).”

But NDB (19-2) was not just happy to be there and the Tigers battled the Eagles to the final out. They simply could not square up Alvarez starting pitcher, freshman Dani Amendola, who was spectacular. Amendola notched the shutout, giving up just four hits.

But the eye-popping number was the 15 strikeouts she recorded. She had two strikeouts or more in five of the seven innings and she struck out the side three times: the second, third and seventh innings.

“She has a really good rise ball and was really spinny,” McDonald said. “We have only two travel-ball players, going against some of the best pitchers in the section. You can’t expect them to make the adjustments.”

Amendola pounded the strike zone all game long. How dominant was she? She had nearly as many strikeouts (15) as pitches called balls (16). She threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of 25 batters faced.

NDB, however, countered Amendola with its own freshman, Allison Lui. While she did not have the strikeout numbers, she was just as effective, throwing six shutout innings.

It wasn’t easy. Lui found herself in trouble in nearly every inning, scattering nine hits. But showing composure beyond her years, Lui got out of the jams almost every time. Alvarez (24-3) had runners in scoring position in every inning but the fifth, but only cashed in those base runners once.

“[Lui] is only a freshman … pitching only at a rec level. This is her first time [pitching] to higher level players,” McDonald said. “They only barreled up the ball, two times?

“She did all we could have asked of her.”

But she could not escape trouble in the bottom of the fourth and that proved to be the difference in the game as the Eagles collected five of their nine hits in that inning alone. With one out, Shanae Figueroa and Crystal Vasquez had back-to-back singles before Michelle Wallace blooped a single to shallow right-center field to load the bases. Kassidy Magdaleno followed with an RBI bunt for a 1-0 lead. Eagles’ No. 9 hitter, Vianna Franco, had the big hit, a two-run double to left that provided all the scoring Amendola would need.

After two innings, Amendola was already flirting with a perfect game, retiring the first six batters she faced, striking out five of them. NDB third baseman Katie Johnson, however, broke up everything leading off the third, as she jumped on a 1-2 pitch and smoked a double to the fence in left field.

Amendola proceeded to strikeout the next three batters.

In the top of the fifth, the Tigers put together their only legitimate scoring threat. Dani DeMera led off the inning with a single to shallow right for the second hit of the game for the Tigers. She went to second on an Olivia Semien sacrifice bunt and took third on Johnson’s second hit of the day to put runners on the corners.

Amendola answered by striking out the next two batters to end the threat. Semien legged out an infield hit with two outs in the top of the seventh for the Tigers final hit of the game, but an Amendola strikeout gave the Eagles their first-ever CCS title.

Despite the loss, McDonald was proud of her team.

“We made it here (to the championship game) and did a great job (getting here),” McDonald said.