Release courtesy of Muhlenberg Athletic Communications
Sarah Karmazyn doesn't pronounce her name so that it rhymes with "amazin'," but maybe now she should.
The senior hit a walkoff home run leading off the bottom of the ninth to lift the Muhlenberg softball team a 3-2 win against Swarthmore in the Centennial Conference championship game. The blast gave the Mules their sixth CC title (one short of McDaniel for the most in league history) and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The field for the Division III tournament will be announced on ncaa.com on Monday, May 9, at 1:00 Eastern.
The home run by Karmazyn (pronounced Karma-zin) was only the second walkoff round-tripper in program history. The first also came in the CC playoffs, a walkoff grand slam by Samantha Crist in a first-round game against Gettysburg in 2009. Karmazyn's homer stands alone in Muhlenberg athletic history as the first play to bring sudden victory in a CC championship contest.
The regionally ranked Garnet, which needed to win three games in one day to claim its first CC title, battled the Mules (22-20) for more than five hours after eliminating Gettysburg, 5-0, in the first game of the day. Swarthmore (29-6) came from behind to defeat Muhlenberg, 9-6, in its second game, forcing the winner-take-all game for the championship.
The Mules, playing as the home team, struck quickly in the final, plating two runs in the bottom of the first on consecutive one-out doubles by senior Genna Cicchetti, sophomore Gillian Zack and freshman Kaitlyn Buurman.
Swarthmore got one of the runs back in the fourth. Muhlenberg was two outs away from the championship before the Garnet tied the score with an unearned run in the top of the seventh. Swarthmore threatened to score the go-ahead run in the seventh, but Karmazyn threw out a runner at home from third base.
The Mules put their leadoff runner on in both the seventh and eighth, advancing both to scoring position, where they were stranded.
The Garnet, meanwhile, never got a runner past first base in the two extra innings. Senior Cora Bridgers, who went the distance on a seven-hitter, gave up only a harmless two-out single in the ninth before retiring the CC leader in RBI on a pop to second.
That set the stage for Karmazyn's heroics. She took the first pitch of the ninth in the dirt for a ball before lining the next offering over the fence in center for her third career home run.
Cicchetti was named tournament MVP after going 6-for-13 in four tournament games, hitting .600 in the three games at Swarthmore. Bridgers had a hand in all three Mule tournament wins, with a win and two saves.
Muhlenberg fell behind 4-0 in its first game of the day before rallying for a six-run fourth against the Swarthmore pitchers who rank first and second in the CC in ERA. The Mules started the inning with five straight singles, including a push bunt by senior Kristin Oberg and RBI hits by freshmen Kaya Mahy and Justine Bergara.
Two outs later, Cicchetti tied the score with a two-run single, her 100th career hit. Two more runs came in on an infield error.
Swarthmore, facing elimination, rallied for four runs in the bottom of the fifth to retake the lead. Muhlenberg went down 1-2-3 in the seventh, sending the series to its ultimate game, which wound up having the ultimate ending - an amazyn' one.