By Phil Murphy
Content Editor, DigitalSports.com
**Check below for complete highlights. Re-live the baseball game in 5 minutes, 2 seconds, plus the Weaver interview. Experience the softball thriller — again — in 11:50.**
At the Liberty District finals on Monday, Stone Bridge baseball first-feam All-District pitcher Ty Weaver was untouchable, while Bulldog softball was touched by an Engel.
Weaver pitched a 77-pitch, complete-game one-hitter, powering top-seeded Stone Bridge past Madison, 10-0, to capture the Liberty championship in baseball. But it could not sweep the night – or Langley – falling in the adjacent softball game, 9-8 in ten innings.
The Saxons avenged two regular-season losses to the Bulldogs and captured their third consecutive district title by way of Lauren Engel‘s two-run, two-out, full-count triple off the base of the right-centerfield wall in the seventh inning.
They clinched the win with a three-run rally in the tenth.
“My mindset was really just to keep the rally going,” said Engel, who has two younger sisters on the team, including starting pitcher, Shannon. “We had been hitting well, we got everybody on. There were two outs, just forget about everything going on. I just wanted to focus on hitting the ball, getting on base and getting our base runners around.
“I was just ecstatic. I didn’t think twice about hitting something like that, I just wanted to get it through the infield and maybe score a run or two.”
Added Saxon coach Bob Morrow: “That’s probably the only triple of her career… I probably have more confidence in her than she has in herself.”
The three-run cushion was paramount for Langley, as Stone Bridge countered with a two-run home run by catcher Kayla Lechler to cut the lead to one run in the bottom half of the tenth.
Sophomore reliever Brooke Brown buckled down to force clean-up hitter Ashley Gardner to ground to short on the first pitch of the next at-bat for the final out.
“I thought our pitcher made a pretty decent pitch to [Lechler] and she just drilled it,” Morrow said. “She is that good of a player. The key was getting those first outs, getting the other players out before her.”
Added Brown: “[After the home run,] I was a little upset and nervous, but I knew my team would pull through.”
The boys’ Liberty championship was slightly less dramatic. Through three innings, Stone Bridge led 6-0. The margin was more than enough for the stingy Bulldogs and Weaver, who improved to 8-0 with the win.
In 22 games, Stone Bridge (19-3) has allowed a total of 40 runs – 1.82 runs per game.
“I just knew our team was going to hit today,” said Weaver, whose earned run average dipped from 2.25 to 1.96 runs per game with the shutout. “We’ve been working hard over the past week. Our bats were ready, we came out and I had confidence because of our runs.
“With those runs you really don’t have to worry about much else, other than throwing strikes.”
The Northern Region Tournament begins Friday with all four teams from Tuesday night hosting their opening-round games.
The Liberty District is matched with the Patriot in first round. Stone Bridge baseball will face T.C. Williams, Madison has South County, Stone Bridge softball draws West Potomac and Langley will host Lake Braddock.
“We have got to have a good week of practice this week and get that confidence,” said Weaver, whose shutout was his second of the season. ‘We have got to go out there and do what we do, and do what we’ve done so far.
“It works.”
E-mail: pmurphy@digitalsports.com
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