Monday,
May 18, 2015
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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On this swing in the bottom of the ninth inning, Emilie Cieslak knocked in the lone run of IHA's 1-0 win over Mahwah in the quarterfinals of the Bergen County Tournament. |
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – The occasion was big and Emilie Cieslak wanted to rise to it. After getting ahead in the count by taking the first pitch of her at bat in the bottom of the ninth inning of Sunday’s Bergen County Tournament quarterfinal against Mahwah, Cieslak nearly came out of her shoes when she swung and missed at the second offering of the at bat. The game was still scoreless, Reese Guevarra was at second base, 120 feet from a spot in the Final 4, and Cieslak tried to do just a little too much in her first attempt to win the game.
“I was just trying to hit the ball as hard as I could. I was so amped up,” said Cieslak, IHA’s junior first baseman. “After that pitch I just thought about making contact. I just wanted to do anything I could to put the ball in play.”
A deep breath and third pitch in the at bat that was called a ball again put Cieslak in the driver’s seat and this time there was no Dave Kingman-esque (google him, those under the age of 40) swing trying to hit the ball a country mile. Cieslak shortened up, pulled her hands in on an inside pitch and drove it over the shortstop into left field.
There is no outfielder in North Jersey that is going to throw out Guevarra when she gets a good jump off of second base, but a bobble in left field made that a moot point as she motored home with the lone run in the 1-0, extra inning victory that sends top-seeded IHA into next weekend’s Bergen County Tournament semifinal against fifth-seeded Indian Hills. That will be a rematch of last year’s final won Indian Hills in a game that many believe to have been the best in tournament history.
The ending has to be written about, of course, but the real story of the game was the pitcher’s duel between Mahwah senior Nicole Curley and IHA’s Katie Kudlacik, the left-handed freshman who pitched the game of her life so far.
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Mahwah's Nicole Curley was brilliant in the circle, allowing just four hits and one walk in 8 1/3 innings. |
Curley gave up just four hits in the game and just two before the decisive ninth inning. She gave up a two-out single to Cieslak in the first, but got the next batter on a comebacker and gave up a leadoff single to Victoria Casey in the fourth when she escaped her only real bit of trouble in regulation. After Cieslak hit a screamer to right field that was caught by Deanna Burbridge, Casey moved up to second on a groundball and to third on a passed ball. Curley cut it off right there as she struck out the final batter of the inning.
Through the first eight innings, Curley retired 21 of the 24 batters she faced, walking just one over that stretch and keeping her team, the No. 8 seed and the underdog, firmly planted in the game.
If there is a way to top that type of performance then Kudlacik did it. Kudlacik walked Alyssa Baldi three times in the game, but the other eight spots in the Mahwah lineup combined to go just 2-for 30 with one walk for and 18 strikeouts against. That was a career high strikeout total for Kudlacik, who did have to work out of a tight spot in the top of the seventh of the still scoreless game.
Emily August, a pinch hitter, led off the seventh with a clean single to center before picking up two bases on a wild pitch and a passed ball. August was a second when Kudlacik got her first strikeout of the inning a 3-2 pitch and at third when Kudlacik (9 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 18 K, 4 BB) got two more Ks to get out of the jam.
“That was scary. It was nerve-wracking because she got to third on wild pitches and pass balls and if there was one more than she would have scored, It was the seventh inning, we would have had only one more at bat and I had to get out of that,” said Kudlacik. “I wasn’t that nervous the first few innings, but once it got to be like the fifth and we still didn’t have any runs, it did get a little scary.”
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IHA freshman Katie Kudlacik set a new career-high with 18 strikeouts. |
Curley [8 1/3 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 K, 1 BB) worked around a one-out walk in the seventh and worked a 1-2-3 eighth, while Kudlacik retired six of the seven batters she faced in the seventh and eighth innings to set up the final frame. IHA had a couple of advantages late as it had last licks and the top of the order set to start the ninth, which meant Guevarra was leading off after going 0-for-3 in her first three plate appearances.
Guevarra was due and she pulled a single into right center and moved up a base on Casey’s sacrifice bunt. Then it was decision time for Mahwah head coach Craig Nielsen, who thought about walking Cieslak.
“You can second guess on whether or not I should have walked that kid [Cieslak] and go after the No. 4 [batter in the lineup], but that kid is the No. 4 for a reason,” said Nielsen. “You know what? I took a shot and had the count gotten to 3-1 we would have walked her.”
Instead, Cieslak hit the 2-1 pitch into left field for the game-winning hit that puts IHA into the county semifinals.
“I was kind of happy that he pitched to [Cieslak] because I knew that she would hit it. I am not saying that I knew she was going to get a hit, but I knew she would hit it hard somewhere,” said IHA head coach Anthony Larezza. “It’s survive and advance in the county tournament. There are no style points, you don’t get extra credit for a knockout and every game is going to be tough. Mahwah is very well coach and hats off to them for playing a great game.”
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