Clune lifts Cards past Flyers in extras

MARIA STEIN - Alyse Clune had three hits already when she came to the plate with two outs and a runner on second base in the ninth inning on Tuesday.

Clune had one more hit left in the tank.

The New Bremen senior belted a single to right field to score Chloe Schwartz for the go-ahead run, and the Cardinals held on to defeat Marion Local 4-3 in nine innings.

"I was very confident with her coming to the plate," said New Bremen coach Craig Griesdorn, who defeated the team coached by his daughter Julie Overman. "She's a good softball player. She knows the game. She's a contact hitter and she doesn't try to do too much with it."

The big plays from Clune didn't stop there. She made a pair of clutch putouts at shortstop in Marion's final at-bat to help seal the deal and keep the Cardinals unbeaten in MAC play.

New Bremen's offense made a little noise in the third and fourth innings and pitcher Sophie Fox kept Marion Local quiet for the majority of the night.

Clune, who finished the day 4-for-5 with two RBIs, gave New Bremen a 1-0 lead when she drove in Schwartz with a double. The Cards added two more in the fourth. Fox was hit by a pitch and replaced on base by Madysson Ritter. Ritter swiped second and advanced to third on Cassidy Smith's single. Back-to-back groundouts by Jenna Broerman and Madison Wells plated both runners.

The Flyers stranded the bases loaded in the fifth and left two more on in the sixth, as Fox finished off the inning with strikeouts 10 and 11.

Marion put the ball in play in the seventh and benefitted on three errors. Chloe Bertke reached on an error and Marah Moeller singled. Sarah Fesenmyer launched a deep drive to right-center and the ball was dropped after a collision between the two outfielders. Both runners scored. Lauren Sanders' bunt scored Fesenmyer to tie the game at 3-all. Sanders reached second after an error but was stranded there.

Broerman tripled with one out in the eighth but was thrown out at the plate when she tried to score on a grounder to first. The next inning, though, the Cardinals didn't let the opportunity slip away.

A two-out double by Schwartz set the table for Clune to come through with the game-winner.

"It's nice to see us come through with two-out hits in the ninth," Griesdorn said.

"They've got to execute and they executed at the right time. We didn't finish," Overman said.

Bertke and Lauren Sanders had two hits apiece for Marion. Moeller pitched a complete game but suffered a tough-luck loss for the Flyers, who fell to 2-16 overall and 1-5 in the MAC. Still, Overman is encouraged by what she's seen recently and hopes the momentum carries into the postseason.

"I feel like we're coming together," she said. "We're communicating better. I think we're finding some leaders on the team when we need to the most and coming together in a tough year is a big thing right now, especially before tournament. That's our goal."

Fox had 12 strikeouts and just one walk in a complete-game effort, while Schwartz and Smith added two hits each for the Cardinals (11-4, 5-0 MAC), who overcame five errors to maintain its quest for league perfection. Griesdorn, however, expects it to be a fight to the finish in the race for the MAC title.

"It's going to be a dogfight the rest of the year - that's the way it's going to be," Griesdorn said. "We've got to hit better obviously and obviously we've got to shore up our defense. Hopefully we'll get that back in shape the next couple days. We've got two tough league games left, and we've just got to take them one at a time."

New Bremen is at home Friday against Spencerville and then hosts MAC rival Minster the following morning at 11 a.m. Marion Local plays at Parkway on Thursday.