May
15, 2005
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| Despite fighting the effects of an asthma attack, Justina Kiernan pitched Paramus past Old Tappan and into the Bergen County quarterfinals. | |
OLD TAPPAN - It has been a trying three days for Paramus junior Justina Kiernan. The Spartans' starting pitcher was nearly hospitalized on Thursday because of an asthma attack and had to sit out Friday's game due to the condition. Her breathing was still not back to normal when Saturday morning rolled around, but she took the ball anyway in the Round of 16 of the Bergen County Tournament on Saturday against Old Tappan.
And while she may have lacked a couple of miles an hour on her fastball, Kiernan battled through the first five innings until her offense could give her some breathing room (sorry, bad pun). The ninth seeded Spartans broke out for four in the fifth inning and three more in the sixth to power Paramus to an 8-2 win and a spot in the first of the four quarterfinal games to be played on Sunday.
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| Paramus' Courtney Schraer made a nice defensice play on this pop up and also drove in two runs and scored another. |
"Considering that she almost had to go to the hospital two days ago and that she was still feeling it today, you have to give Justina a lot of credit for going out and doing what she did today," said Paramus head coach Brian Hay. "If you look at her now you can see that she is struggling, but she wanted to be out there and she made all of the big pitches we needed against a team like Old Tappan that can hit the ball."
Kiernan was staked to an early lead when Jackie Holowinski singled to knock in Brianne Krum in the top of the first inning and Kiernan's main concern thereafter was ringing up outs as quickly as possible in order to get back in the shade of the dugout to catch her breath.
"If you've
seen me pitch before you know that I usually walk around the mound and take
my time between pitches and think about what I want to do," said Kiernan.
"But today I was rushing more between pitches just trying to get the innings
over as fast as I could."
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| Lauren Dinsdale drove in one of Old Tappan's two runs. |
And she was effective in doing just that. She held Old Tappan scoreless through the first four and didn't allow a run until the Spartans' offensive had already given her plenty of cushion. In the top of the fifth, Krum had an RBI single and Courtney Schraer, Holowinski, Brittany Schillizzi and Krum all plated runs to give Paramus a 5-1 lead. Schraer added a two-run single in the sixth that scored Julie Thompson and Jamie Kaminer to make it 7-1 and Schraer then scored on a throwing error.
Old Tappan got single runs in the sixth and seventh with Lauren Dinsdale singling home Juli Sakayama and Cindy Bagnoli plating Rebekah Demarest, but it was too little, too late.
With the win Paramus earned another shot at IHA, which knocked the Spartans out of last season's tournament with a 1-0 win made possible by an error in the seventh inning of the semifinals and beat them earlier this year, 5-1.
The matchup will also mean a little more to Kiernan, who attended IHA for one month as a freshman before transferring back to her hometown school.
"Considering I went there as a freshman, this is a game I really want to win every time we face IHA," said Kiernan. "I feel like we are going to come out strong, but I am a little nervous, I'm anxious to get going."
IHA 1, RUTHERFORD 0 (8) - To get to the rematch with Paramus, IHA, this year's top seed, had to sweat out a scare from No. 16 Rutherford in Saturday's Round of 16.
Rutherford had two on and nobody out in a scoreless game in the top of the seventh, but IHA starter Erika Lockhart struck out the next three hitters to escape trouble and set up the Eagles' eighth inning rally that started with Colleen McCarten's one-out single. Meg Picinic then drew a walk and Caitlyn Carroll was hit in the helmet by an Isa Mendez pitch to load the bases.
Mendez got a pop up for the second out, but Mary Langan then poked a slow roller to second base and beat the play at first, allowing McCarten to score the wining run.
Lockhart allowed just three hits and three walks while striking out nine and Mendez was almost as good, allowing just the one run on six hits.
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