Foothill Wins Battle For No. 1

Mater Dei pitcher Tia Bollinger went into the Southern Section Division I championship game excited by the prospect of finally facing Foothill.

Mater Dei was ranked No. 1 in the state, and Foothill was No. 2. In some polls, they were even ranked 1-2 in the nation.

And, Bollinger said, “It will be nice to put to bed the whole Foothill-Mater Dei rivalry.”

But the outcome wasn’t quite the way Bollinger imagined it.

Foothill’s Courtney Fossatti and Elizabeth Bendig combined on a two-hitter, and Erin Mobley scored on a two-out error in the eighth inning to give the Knights the championship, 1-0.

Playing before an overflow crowd of about 3,000 at Lakewood’s Mayfair Park on Saturday night, Bendig (10-1) got the victory over Bollinger (30-2).

Bollinger struck out nine and allowed only two hits, but was victimized by the Monarchs’ fourth error of the game. Mater Dei had made only 28 errors all season.

“When I touched home plate, I was in such shock,” Mobley said. “I couldn’t have felt any better.”

Mobley scored from third base on a two-out throwing error in the top of the eighth inning. She singled to open the inning, took second on Bendig’s bunt and reached third on a grounder to shortstop Christina Clark.

Then Amber Dragomir, Foothill’s only senior starter, slapped the first pitch from Bollinger down the third-base line. Third baseman Sheila McCorkle, standing in fair territory about halfway down the line, backhanded the ball, then threw the ball away trying to catch the speedy Dragomir.

Actually, there was some question about whether Dragomir’s well-placed ball was even fair. Bendig, among others, thought it was foul as McCorkle reached toward the third-base foul line. But home plate umpire Jim Killinger never hesitated in signaling it fair.

“I thought it was foul,” said Bollinger, a senior who will play at Washington next season. “But it shouldn’t have come down to that. We had plenty of opportunities to score. We never even should have gone to the eighth inning.”

Mater Dei stranded four runners, two in the first and one each in the sixth and seventh innings. McCorkle, who singled leading off the first, was left at third. After a one-out walk in the sixth, McCorkle was stranded at second.

And in the seventh, Jessica Young singled against Fossatti--Mater Dei’s second hit--and Bendig came in to get out of the inning. Young was stranded at second.

“I definitely thought we were going to score,” Bollinger said. “There was no doubt in my mind we were going to beat this team.”

This is Foothill’s first section title since 1992. Foothill ends 33-2 and Mater Dei finishes 31-2. Mater Dei, playing in its fifth championship game in six years, was ranked second in the Orange County sportswriters poll and Foothill had been ranked No. 1.

“Mater Dei’s a great team, they’re ranked No. 1 in the nation and Tia’s a great pitcher,” Dragomir said. “It makes it even better to win it against a quality team like that.”

Both teams spoke highly of the other.

“Bollinger did a great job,” said Fossatti (23-1), who struck out only two and walked three before giving way to Bendig. “It’s so hard to lose on a slap bunt, but that’s what we do, and our speed just killed them at the end.”

Together, Fossatti and Bendig out-dueled Bollinger, who had a 0.03 earned-run average entering the final and lost for the first time in nine career playoff games. Bollinger allowed only two hits, and retired 15 in a row before Mobley’s eighth-inning single off Bollinger’s leg.

The last time the teams met in anything but a scrimmage was during Bollinger’s freshman season. Foothill beat Mater Dei, 1-0, in a semifinal with a run in the seventh inning. Bollinger didn’t pitch.

Bendig retired the side in order in the bottom of the eighth, the last out being McCorkle’s grounder to Mobley.

“It was weird--I had this vision I was going to make the last out of the game,” Mobley said. “When Kristen caught it. . . . I get welled up just thinking about it.

“It was a perfect end to a perfect game.”