SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS : Lemire Snags a Title for Woodbridge : Division II: With elusive slide, she scores on a wild pitch in the eighth to give Warriors a 4-3 victory over Lakewood.

The journey was unexpected. No one figured it would end quite like that, with sophomore Lizzy Lemire running as hard as she could, finding home plate blocked by the pitcher and then sliding behind her.

And then slapping home plate with her hand.

But that’s the way Woodbridge’s season ended, with Lemire scoring on a wild pitch with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning, giving the Warriors an improbable 4-3 victory over fourth-seeded Lakewood for the Southern Section Division II softball championship in front of about 2,000 at Mayfair Park.

The Warriors came back from one- and two-run deficits against one of the section’s best pitchers, Angela Bessolo.

“They’ve won their last three games 1-0, and I know they thought that one run was all they needed,” Woodbridge Coach Alan Dugard said. “I know they knew they were going to win after they scored two more runs.”

It was the third consecutive game Woodbridge had won after trailing; the Warriors were down, 3-2, to Long Beach Millikan in the quarterfinals, and trailed Santa Fe Springs St. Paul, 2-1, and 3-2.

But again Woodbridge put pressure on the pitcher. The Warriors had 24 hits in their last two games and added 11 more against Bessolo.

In the eighth Bessolo’s fastball escaped catcher Julie Lewis’ glove on a 2-and-1 pitch to Carrie Brown.

Lemire, who had singled and taken third on Lolita Harper’s single, hesitated. She was about three feet off the bag, she said, when she heard Dugard yelling in her ear, “Go, go, go!”

She went.

“That was the longest call of my life, waiting for the umpire to call me safe or out,” Lemire said. “It seemed like three years.”

It gave the Warriors their fourth section title since 1987 and first since 1992.

Said Bessolo, a senior bound for Notre Dame: “I couldn’t tell you what happened; it just went really fast.”

The ball and Lemire arrived at the plate at the same time, but instead of sliding into foul territory, Lemire went inside.

“I knew she didn’t tag me and I slapped home plate as fast as I could,” she said. “I was surprised [the pitch] got past [the catcher]--it looked normal. Then all of a sudden . . . Whoa!”

It was a terrific victory for Woodbridge, which started four freshmen and two sophomores against a Lakewood team that started six seniors and three juniors.

“This game says a lot about the character of these kids,” Dugard said. “They have no fear. They haven’t quit on me all year.”

Freshman pitcher Christy Robitaille (21-5) pitched a four-hitter and struck out 10 and she walked four. And her mistakes by her teammates put the Warriors in 1-0 and 3-1 holes. But each time, the Warriors responded.

Ashley Boone tripled and scored on an error in the fourth to make it 1-1, and Boone singled, scored on Lisa Weaver’s double in the sixth. The rally continued when Weaver scored from third on Lemire’s hot smash between the legs of third baseman Alisa Rogers.

And then came the eighth, with Brown at bat.

“I contemplated a squeeze until she fouled that pitch off,” Dugard said. “I thought, well, now we’ll have to go with something else. That something else happened before I could think of something else.”

And that was fine by him.