By Joseph Staszewski
After a more-than-three-decade wait for its first Big East softball championship, what were a few more minutes for St. John’s? The Red Storm thought it had the final out, but Seton Hall’s Jackie DiPietro was called safe on a close play at first base.
“Everyone was just ready to cheer,” senior pitcher Francesca Carrullo said. “I was like, ‘You got to be kidding me.’”
It brought the winning run to the plate with St. John’s up by two. Carrullo then struck out Sarah Foster looking on a close pitch with a full count to seal the 7-5 victory for top-seeded St. John’s over No. 3 Seton Hall in the title game at the Ballpark at Rosemont in Rosemont, Ill. on May 9. It was the highest-scoring final in tournament history.
“When he said strike three I was like, ‘Really,” Carrullo said. “I was like, ‘Yeah! It’s strike three!’”
It was just the program’s third appearance in the championship in its 35 seasons – and its first crown. The Red Storm, which also won the regular-season crown, reached the tournament final last year before falling to host DePaul, and lost in the semis the prior year. St. John’s reached this year’s title game by beating No. 4 Villanova 5-4 earlier that morning in a semifinal game resumed after one-half inning in the books because of rain the day before.
“I’ve never seen a team come together through thick and thin and accomplish what we set out to do back in September,” St. John’s coach Amy Kvilhaug said. “This team has been such an inspiration to me. I couldn’t be happier for this group to win the Big East championship and go down in history as the first [St. John’s] team ever to do that.”
Kvilhaug’s team will play its first NCAA tournament game against host and No. 12-seed Arizona in the Tucson Regional Friday. The Wildcats are 38-17 and the Pac-12 runner-up.
In order to get to that game, St. John’s needed to stage a rally. The Red Storm got a run in the first inning on Brittany Garcia’s RBI single, but then watched the Pirates score four times in the top of the second to grab a 4-1 lead. But a response didn’t take long. St. John’s plated three runs in the bottom of the frame. Hannah Anderson drove in a run with a single and Monique Landini’s two-RBI single knotted things up at 4-4.
“No one panicked,” Carrullo said.
But Seton Hall didn’t go quietly. The Pirates briefly grabbed the lead again in the top of the fourth, but St. John’s scored twice more in the bottom of the frame to go up 6-5. The Red Storm picked up an insurance run on a Seton Hall error in the sixth, bringing the score to 7-5, where it stayed.
