By Adam Minichino
Anna McCrary treated the at-bat like any other in the past two-plus years.
She walked to the left of home plate and used her bat to draw the sign of the cross in the dirt in memory of her father, Thomas Ambrose McCrary. “Tub,” as he was affectionately known, taught Anna so much about the game of softball, which is why she always takes a moment to celebrate his life every time before she steps into the batter’s box.
At no time did the thought creep into McCrary’s mind that it might be her final at-bat in a game at Lady Trojan Field. It also didn’t occur to McCrary that she might have occasion to script a perfect ending to a piece of history.
The only thing McCrary could think of after she made contact was, “Thank God, we’re going to State.”
McCrary’s groundball in the bottom of the seventh inning went off the glove of the third baseman and down the left-field line to score D.J. Sanders from second base and lift the New Hope High School fast-pitch softball team to a 1-0 victory against Lake Cormorant in the deciding game of their best-of-three Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A North State title series. Earlier in the day, Kasey Stanfield’s RBI single in the bottom of the eighth inning gave New Hope a 2-1 victory in game two.
More than two hours later, McCray made the most of her chance to create another memorable performance.
“I was just trying to get a basehit,” McCrary said. “Basehit after basehit after basehit, they work together, and it always comes and we always pull through. I was just waiting on that basehit.”
New Hope (27-4-1) will take on Wayne County (20-9-1), the South State champion, Friday in game one of the best-of-three state title series at Freedom Ridge Park in Ridgeland. Wayne County, the two-time defending state champion, beat East Central in two games to advance.
New Hope, which has won 14 state championships in slow-pitch softball, and the past five in a row, is back in the state title game in fast-pitch softball for the first time since 2003. The program has never won a fast-pitch championship.
McCrary, the lone senior on New Hope’s 2012 fast-pitch squad, is well aware of that fact. She has spent most of her softball career patrolling the outfield in front of the cavalcade of championship signs on the outfield wall. This season, she moved seamlessly to center field and assumed the role former Lady Trojans like DeShuni Sanders and Haley Tutor have played. Flanked by less experienced players like Ashley Reed (in left) and R.J. James (in right), McCrary has shown the poise and fire of a leader who is focused on helping her team make history.
The latest chapter didn’t exactly go according to plan, but McCrary will take it. She admitted she was trying to hit the final pitch from Jess Holliday behind Sanders, who had reached on an infield error and moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt by Stanfield. She also realized she didn’t keep her weight back long enough on the offspeed pitch. Fortunately, she hit the ball solidly enough that it deflected off the glove of the charging third baseman and rolled helplessly down the line. Sanders read the play and scored easily to help New Hope break a string of losses (2004-06) in the North State title game. Those losses came when the program was in Class 4A.
“When I saw it go through her legs, all I could think about was, ‘State. State, You gave it to is God. State,” McCrary said. “He pulled us through it.”
McCrary’s contact was one of the few instances New Hope generated any offense. Kaitlin Bradley’s bunt single in the fourth inning was New Hope’s only hit. The Lady Trojans also put a runner on in the third thanks to an infield error, but Holliday didn’t walk a batter and stayed in control by changing speeds and mixing pitches.
New Hope coach Tabitha Beard said she was praying for McCrary to come through in the bottom of the seventh.
“She has been through so much in her lifetime. I can only imagine the celebration in heaven right now with her dad and all that,” Beard said. “To end her season and her career on this field like that with the winning run, it is amazing. That is like the big dot on the bottom of the exclamation point of her career.”
Sanders, who pitched the final three innings of New Hope’s win in game two, which was suspended from Saturday, was just as masterful. The sophomore right-hander worked out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the seventh inning in game two. She also wiggled out of trouble in the first, sixth, and seventh in game three when Lake Cormorant put runners in scoring position. Sanders walked two, struck out three and allowed only two hits.
New Hope committed just one error in game three and relied on stellar defense to stay in it. It turned a 7-4 double play in the first, used some fine glove work at third from Bradley in the second, and some equally nifty infield play by Lauren Holifield on a 6-6-3 double play in the fourth to deny the Lady Gators any opportunities.
“We played Lady Trojan softball defense today,” McCrary said. “Our bats may not be big at all times, but we come through with our bats and our defense keeps us in the game. As long as you have defense, you’re offense will come. We worked our defense today. We did a great job today.”
Said Beard, “I have said all my life that offense wins games, defense wins championships. This series was defined by our defense. They’re a great team. Defensively, we just kept at them, kept at them, kept at them.”
When it came time to deliver, McCrary didn’t disappoint. She said she has thought many times about the fact this is her final chance to win a state title. She admits next year’s team should have a “great chance” at winning a state title in 2013. She also feels the current group of Lady Trojans has just as good a shot.
“I know we can do it. We can do it,” McCrary said. “Words don’t describe how happy I was. Nothing else went through my mind except for, ‘We’re going to state, we’re going to state, we can do it, we’re going to state.’ It is unbelievable.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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