Prep Softball: Early onslaught carries Wave

ADDISON -- Pitching and defense have carried the St. Edward softball team so far this year, but all along coach Mike Rolando felt strongly that the offense would eventually come around.

On Saturday, the bats came around in a big way in the Driscoll Class 2A Regional championship game. The top-seeded Green Wave pounded out 18 hits and scored a season-high 14 runs to capture its first regional title since 2005 with a 14-4 win over the host Highlanders in six innings.

"We've been spending most of our practices working on our hitting," said Rolando, in his first season at the helm. "We were up at eight this morning in the cages. We've struggled on offense most of the season, but the thing is, we know we have some good hitters. It's just been one of those things where we've been in a cold stretch.

"We started hitting the ball better the last five games or so, but the bats really woke up today. We stepped it up and rose to the occasion."

St. Edward (17-11) advances to play Westmont in the Timothy Christian Sectional semifinals Thursday.

Against Driscoll, the Wave set the tone early, exploding for six runs in the first inning. Kelly Knott got things started with a leadoff double. One out later, Kristy Knott drove in her sister with an RBI single for the first run of the game.

Megan Pozezinski then delivered a two-run homer over the left-field fence. It was her second homer of the season. Megan Tourtellott added a sacrifice fly and Megan Smith closed out the scoring with a two-run single.

"We've really been hitting the cages a lot," said Pozezinski, who was a starter as a freshman for the last regional title team. "Everything finally came together for us today. I got the perfect pitch (on the homer) and as soon as I hit it, I knew it was gone.

"Ever since winning that first regional I couldn't wait to win another."

The Wave went into a bit of a lull in the middle innings, tacking on just single runs in the second and fourth to increase its lead to 8-0. Erin McGraw had an RBI double in the second and Lea Diaz drove in a run with a single in the fourth.

On the mound, McGraw (7-6) held Driscoll hitless through the first four innings before the Highlanders made things a little interesting with four runs in the fifth to cut the lead in half.

McGraw settled down after that to retire the side in order in the sixth. She finished with four strikeouts, just one walk and yielded four hits.

"This is amazing," McGraw said. "I don't have words to describe it. I was never worried. I knew my team had my back the whole way."

The Wave exploded again for six runs in the bottom of the sixth to end the game an inning early via the slaughter rule. McGraw had a two-run double to finish the day 3-for-4 with three RBIs at the plate.

Smith also got her third RBI of the game with a run-scoring single. Kelly Knott's second double of the contest knocked in two more runs to end the game.