PARK RIDGE—Congratulations to the Park Ridge Girls Middle School softball team on their dramatic come-from-behind 11-10 win against Wyckoff in 10 innings on Monday June 6. They are now the NBMSIAL Champions.
With this win the girls completed their season with a perfect 11-0 record.
The team fell behind early. Going into the bottom of the last inning, they were down 5 to 2 but fought hard to tie the game and send it into extra innings.
Down 9 to 5 in the 8th inning, the team again fought back and tied the game at 9. In the 10th inning, Wyckoff once grabbed the lead, 10 to 9.
Batting in the bottom of the 10th inning, Park Ridge had two outs and runners on 2nd and 3rd in the bottom when seventh-grader Kayla Iula hit a ball that fell just out of the reach of a Wyckoff outfielder, allowing fellow seventh-graders Dani DellaVolpe and Aurelia Carolan to score the tying and winning runs on a walkoff victory for the home team, ending this three-hour battle.
Eighth-grader Gabi DellaVolpe was stellar on the mound and received the game ball.
The Owls’ win was the first championship for the middle school softball program, Coach Karen Carroll told Pascack Press on June 15.
“Last year was a Covid season, a short season. There were no playoffs, but the girls that were now the eighth-graders as seventh-graders finished winning nine of out of 10 games. If there had been the playoffs they were the best team into this year,” she said.
“Wyckoff, who we played in the finals, didn’t play last year. But they have always been one of the strongest teams in the league. So we played them in our second-to-last regular game, and both teams were undefeated,” she said.
Carroll said, “We went to their field, and it was just a barn-burner: it was back and forth, and at the end we pulled it out and beat them, 11-6, but they were missing their best pitcher.”
She added, “So it was a good win for us, we got home field advantage for the playoffs, and I knew we would play them again, which we did: we played them in the finals.”
Of the championship game’s fireworks, Carroll said, “One of the umpires said it was one of the best games he’s every umpired in high school or middle school. There were double plays, there were diving catches…”
She said, “Neither team deserved to lose that game. It was just a battle. My girls showed true grit.”
Carroll said, “It was a three-hour game … we didn’t get done ‘til a quarter to eight. It was one of those, Oh my God, oh my God, yes, no, yes!”
Carroll said, too, that of her nine eighth-graders and nine seventh-graders, not every girl played in the championship — but that they all are champs.
“If you look at the team picture you can’t tell who played in the game and who didn’t because every one of them was beaming from head to toe for the win. It’s a selfless team,” she said.
She added, “That says a lot. I’m really proud of them. I can’t wait for next year.”
— With John Snyder