May 7, 2013 5 min read

CANONSBURG – Call it a bit of good scheduling that had the softball teams at Trinity and Canon-McMillan high schools meeting Tuesday in the Big Macs’ Senior Night. Each with a section championship firmly secured – Trinity in Section 2 of Class AAA, and C-M in Class AAAA’s Section 4 – the Hillers and Big Macs did some late playoff preparation.

The results showed that the hitters are in postseason form.

The fielders? They might need some extra work in the days leading up to the postseason.

Canon-McMillan, the defending WPIAL Class AAAA champion, hit three home runs and scored at least three runs in every inning en route to a 17-7 five-inning victory over the Hillers, who were the first Class AAA team to clinch a section title this season.

Olivia Lorusso homered and drove in three runs, Kirsten Rush went 3-for-4 with four RBI and Taszmin Kotar doubled and scored four runs, to help C-M (17-1) overcome an early four-run deficit.

“Are we playoff ready? I don’t think you’re ever ready,” said C-M coach Michelle Moeller. “We’ve got to keep going. We have to play our game. Are we hitting the ball? Yes.”

The Big Macs are indeed hitting the ball – very hard and far. Canon-McMillan has put up double-figure runs in six of its last seven games, and Moeller said at least eight different players have hit home runs this season. Against Trinity (11-4), the Big Macs’ received a home run and triple from Lorusso, and solo homers from Tara Fowler and Ally Bellaire, the Nos. 7 and 8 hitters in a potent lineup.

“In Triple-A, we haven’t seen a team hit like them,” Trinity coach Mike Marino said. “They hit everything.”

Trinity did some hitting, too. The Hillers jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning, taking advantage of three C-M errors, a walk and Hali Justice’s run-scoring bunt. The Big Macs also failed to get an out on a rundown, something that Trinity did an inning later.

“That first inning was uncharacteristic of us,” Moeller said. “That’s why we don’t do Senior Night at a section game. We’ve learned not to do that. Senior Night is emotional, and that first inning showed that. We’ve been fielding the ball well, and they hit only one ball out of the infield in the first inning but scored four runs against us. We’ll chalk that up to Senior Night emotions.”

Canon-McMillan answered Trinity’s big first inning with three runs in their half, with Lorusso driving in two runs by golfing a pitch over the fence in left field. The Big Macs took the lead with five runs on only three hits, including Bellaire’s home run that landed on top of the batting cage beyond center field, in the second inning. The Hillers contributed a costly dropped popup, missed a tag on a rundown and issued two of their eight walks in the second inning.

“We have been playing well defensively,” Marino said. “But you want to see those mistakes now instead of in the playoffs. We have some things we need to tighten up before the playoffs.”

Lorusso capped C-M’s four-run third inning with an RBI-triple that made the score 12-4. Trinity’s Olivia Gray hit a three-run homer to left field in the fourth inning that pulled the Hillers to within 12-7 before the C-M scored five times in the bottom of the fourth. Fowler started the inning with her home run.

Gray made two stellar defensive plays at shortstop that prevented at least one C-M run. She threw out Kirtsen Rush after making a diving stop going to her left in the first inning, then robbed Giorgiana Zeremenko of a hit in the third with a diving grab of a line drive.

Canon-McMillan will have one last tuneup before the postseason when it hosts Section 1-AAA champion Ambridge today.

“We’ve been playing so many games that we need to get in some practices before the playoffs, just to work on some things,” Moeller said. “It was good that we played Trinity because I knew they would play some small-ball, which they did, and we need to work on defending that.”

Meanwhile, Trinity, which has lost four of its last six, will try to rediscover what was working so well when it won its first nine games of the season.

“Canon-Mac is the No.1 team in Quad-A, is well-coached, has been to the playoffs and is a very disciplined team. We’re happy to have to had the opportunity to play them,” Marino said. “But when you clinch a section title so early – you’re glad it happened, of course – but sometimes it’s hard to flip the switch off and then turn it back on. That’s one thing we need to work on.”