With hundreds of people screaming in support of her, Brooke Simmons needed a moment to zone everything out and just breathe.
The Glen Cove Junior softball ace had been working toward this moment for five years. The deciding game of the Class AA championship series was here. There were two outs, bottom of the seventh, her team leading by one, and after getting the first two outs, the tying MacArthur run was standing on third base.
“Because,” Simmons said, “we have to do everything the hard way.”
So with the din swirling around her, Simmons stepped back and inhaled deeply. Moments later, after MacArthur’s Julia Hart fouled off two straight pitches, Simmons was smiling and laughing, having a grand old time out there.
Finally, Hart’s soft pop-up to first landed in the glove of Natalie Weigand, and a celebration 40 years in the making could begin.
Glen Cove rallied for two runs in the top of the seventh, and squeaked out a thriller, 2-1, Monday at Farmingdale State.
The Big Red now play Suffolk champ East Islip in the Long Island championship game Wednesday, June 4 at 4 p.m. back here at Farmingdale State.
For MacArthur, the 2023 county champs, it was the second straight year its season ended in Game 3 of the championship series.
“To their credit, they put the ball in play and they found spots, which they hadn’t done for six innings,” MacArthur coach Bobby Fehrenbach said. “(Simmons) is a great pitcher. To beat her once is fantastic; to beat her twice is really, really hard.”
For six innings, MacArthur righty Alex Livanos stymied Glen Cove (14-10) completely. The Big Red managed only one hit through six innings, and it looked like the unearned run the Generals scored off Simmons in the fourth inning was all MacArthur would need.
But down to its final three outs, Glen Cove rallied.
“We said in the dugout (before the inning), we gotta do this now, it’s now or never,” said second baseman Siena Scagliola. “Nobody was panicked, it was just, ‘OK, let’s go.”
Simmons started the rally by slicing a double to left field leading off, then went to third on a wild pitch.
Mia Lupinski then slapped a game-tying single through the left side to cause an eruption among the hundreds of Glen Cove fans in the crowd.
After a sac bunt by Julia Petrizzo, Scagliola stepped up and ripped a double into the left field corner. Defeat was so near for Glen Cove until a couple of big swings changed it.
Monday was the capper to an emotional five days for Glen Cove: The 24 hours from the start of Game 1 through the end of Game 2 were “as emotional as you could possibly get,” Big Red coach Kim Kessel said.
To lead off Game 1, star Glen Cove catcher Alyssa Weigand blasted a home run over the fence. As Weigand approached home plate, she jumped on the dish and injured her knee, ending her softball season.
Glen Cove would take a 5-1 lead in Game 1, and with Simmons on the mound, “we were feeling pretty confident,” Kessel said.
But MacArthur, a perennial power from Levittown, battled back and squeaked out a 7-6 win in 11 innings, which made Friday’s Game 2 a must-win.
Fortunately for Glen Cove, it had Simmons in the pitching circle, and after allowing an unearned run thanks to a pair of wild pitches in the second inning, the righty was dominant, throwing her second no-hitter of the season.
“I just didn’t let myself get emotionally too far either way,” Simmons said. “To not be getting down on myself, things are going to happen. Being able to stay within myself and hold down the game.”
For the Big Red, the no-hitter symmetry from their last county championship in the sport, in 1985, was perfect.
Back then, a pitcher named Delia DeRiggi threw a no-hitter in the championship game to lift her team to win. DeRiggi-Whitton was at all three games of this current series and cheered loudly for Simmons, walking in her footsteps.
Alyssa Weigand, who watched Game 3 from the dugout, was mobbed by her teammates after the final out.
“We won for her, this is all because of her, and without her, we wouldn’t have made it here,” Simmons said.
“It was amazing; so much harder to watch than play,” Weigand said. “It means so much to me; they’re my family, and the fact that they ran over to me was just so special.”
Now the Big Red get to play at least one more game. And remind people that Glen Cove isn’t just a “soccer school.”
“All anyone cares about at our school is soccer and they didn’t know who we were,” Simmons said, with a laugh. “Now we’ve finally put (softball) up there, too.”
