GLEN BURNIE — Entering the top half of the seventh and Rising Sun holding a five-run lead, the Tigers stood three outs away from making their third straight trip to the 2A State Championship game.
Pitcher Madison Ore recorded two quick outs on a strikeout and a pop-out to Malea Ferdinando. Walkersville however, did not go away lightly. A two-run home run from Gabriella Montgomery followed a single from Izzy Dietrich and put the Lions within three.
Two batters later, Ore forced a fly ball to center. As center fielder Sam Dixon roamed over to her left and squeezed the ball in her glove, Rising Sun moved on to the state final and the Tigers streamed out of the dugout.
Rising Sun’s current team became the fifth squad in Cecil County softball history to make three consecutive appearances in the state championship. The Tigers join the ranks North East’s 1988-1990 teams, Elkton’s 1990-1992 squads and Bohemia Manor’s pair of teams from 1994-1996 and 2017-2019. Rising Sun (22-0) will face Huntingtown (18-3) in the Class 2A State Championship at 5:30 p.m. on Friday at the University of Maryland.
“This year will be the tie-breaker,” Rising Sun second baseman Josalyn McMillan said of reaching the state championship for the third time. “First year we lost it, but not by much and last year was a long game, stressful, but we won that one.”
Ore entered the circle in the fourth inning tied at three, after Walkersville erased a 3-0 Rising Sun lead in the previous inning on a three-run home run from Dietrich. The Lions’ third inning rally began after Karmen Obando reached on a fielding error, followed by a double from Anna Swann that put runners on second and third with no outs.
After a scoreless fourth, Ore put Dietrich on base via walk to start the fifth inning. The Tigers used a forceout at second to record their first out. Rising Sun twisted a 6-4-3 double play from Jordan Lynch to McMillan to Madison Fairweather on the ensuing at-bat to close out the inning. Ore forced two flyouts and a groundout in the sixth to keep the Lions off the scoreboard. She struck out three and allowed four hits in four innings of relief work.
“With the game tied it’s kind of like it’s starting over, like a fresh game,” Ore said of entering the game in the fourth inning. “Just going out there and treating it like it’s a new game. We can comeback, even though momentum might be going their way.”
Still knotted at three in the home half of the fifth, Rising Sun scored four runs to take a 7-3 advantage. Lynch began the inning with a double, followed by a ground rule double from McMillan that put the Tigers ahead by a run. After a walk of Dixon and an infield single by Bri Cole loaded the bases, Aubrey McCoy and Ore drove in runs to push Sun’s lead to four.
McMillan used an RBI single in the sixth to give Rising Sun an 8-3 advantage. The Shepherd University signee finished the day three-for-four at the plate.
“It was exciting, we had a lot of momentum after that,” McMillan said of her ground rule double to give Rising Sun a 4-3 lead. “Just keeping that rolling really got us hyped.”
Rising Sun opened the game with a three-run first inning, including a leadoff home run by Lynch to put the Tigers ahead one. Following back-to-back singles from McMillan and Dixon, Cole drove in a pair on a two-run single. Rising Sun’s designated hitter felt Sun’s early momentum allowed the team to settle into a rhythm.
“With Jordan starting off with that home run, our nerves were gone,” Cole said. “And then Josalyn comes up clutch, Sam comes up clutch, I come up clutch, it’s just back-to-back-to-back and then it starts us off strong.”
On an adjacent field at Bachman Sports Complex, Huntingtown knocked off undefeated Damascus 8-2. Damascus was last year’s Class 3A champion. Huntingtown won its last state title in 2019.
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