SOFTBALL: Triton stands tall, eliminates GCIT in 10

• The game's first eight innings ended in about an hour, a torrid pace for softball
• In the ninth, both teams scored a run
• Triton answered with two in the top of the 10th to put the game away
• In wide-open South Jersey Group 3 playoffs, Mustangs now have the ball rolling

DEPTFORD TWP. - The Triton High School softball team could have packed it in. The Mustangs could have gone back to their stable, demoralized and frustrated.

But that wouldn’t be their way.

With two runs in the top of the 10th inning, the No. 10 seed in the South Jersey Group 3 tournament took down No. 7 GCIT at Rowan College at Gloucester County on Monday 3-1.

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The ninth inning gave plenty reason for Triton (13-9) to break. After the road team finally plated a run in the top of the frame, the Cheetahs answered with one of their own.

It came just after GCIT’s third hit of the game, a Caitlyn Newsom sacrifice fly that scored Jess Beck.

Beck rapped a single to center field, stole second and moved to third on an errant throw. Once she crossed the plate to knot the contest, Mustangs’ junior pitcher Giavonna Ceriminaro had one thought.

“I needed to get the next out so we could get back to bat and get more runs,” she recalled. “We wanted it more. We had more fight.”

Ceriminaro induced a fly out to stop the pressure. Then, with international tiebreak rules at play – a runner starts the frame on second base – the Mustangs pulled away.

They loaded the bases with no outs. Sophomore center fielder Nikita Acker poked a low, outside pitch to right to make it 2-1. Allyssa Malony’s dribbler to the pitcher ended up with a high throw to the plate.

It stood at 3-1. Ceriminaro wouldn’t need any more help.

The ace likened the game to a dogfight. It shaped up more like a race between the clubs with nicknames befitted for it.

Only one hour elapsed before the tilt’s ninth inning.

“I said to myself, ‘This is what we worked for all season,’” Ceriminaro said. “It all built up to this moment and we got it.”

And things certainly did build up for Triton. For starters, the club came to spring practice with a new coach, Shayla Giosia. The former Gloucester Catholic star – who’s 22 years old – added a different dynamic than what the Mustangs had grown accustomed under Pam McCabe.

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“Both are good coaches and both are different,” Malony, a four-year starter, said. “Playing for Shayla is different since she’s straight out of college but we knew we couldn’t let that affect us.

“We had to listen to her and learn from her.”

After a 3-3 start, they won seven of eight. Then, the Runnemede group wilted down the stretch, with four losses in five games before Monday. A three-game skid, the latest marks on the ledger as Monday approached.

Those Mustangs didn’t show up against the Cheetahs (14-6). The one that did hit it hard and fielded with remarkable efficiency on the left side of the infield.

Repeatedly, GCIT pounded grounders to Malony at third and Nicole Davidson at shortstop. The rockets went there to die a total of 14 times.

“They sucked up everything,” Cheetahs’ coach John Holland succinctly remarked.

Fittingly, Davidson fielded one with a swift throw for the final out.

“Those two are our captains, they come out and work every day,” Giosia said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better group of girls to get my first playoff win with.”

Now, the Mustangs turn the quarter pole in the bracket that saw them advance to the semifinals last year. No. 1 Cumberland is gone – disposed of last Friday in the first round. No. 2 Pinelands – the team that eliminated Triton, 5-4, last season – awaits on Wednesday.

The Wildcats (17-4) beat No. 15 Deptford last week by a run. Giosia’s group beat the same Spartans’ team by four tallies in early May.

It’s wide open.

“That’s what I told Shayla after the game,” Holland said. “I believed whoever won this had a real good shot. She’s got them playing very well.”

They’ve played well before. The difference this time, a stubborn denial of defeat. They’d outplayed their opponent, yet stood on the doorstep of defeat. That’s where these Mustangs refused to back away from the moment.

“We stayed together today,” Acker said. “Most times, we fall apart. But today, we didn’t.”

Malony went a step further.

“We were in it from the beginning and we weren’t going to stop there,” the vacuum at the hot corner said. “We work hard and fight for everything.

“This was really fun. It was one of the best games we played all year.”

It ended that way because Triton found its resilience and its willingness to have “more fight.” This time of year, the perfect occasion to discover it.

Mark Trible; (856) 486-2424; mtrible@gannettnj.com

TRITON 3

GCIT 1

10 inn.

Play of the game: Mustangs’ center fielder Nikita Acker poked a low and away pitch to right field to score the eventual game-winner.

Player of the game: Triton pitcher Giavonna Ceriminaro, who allowed just three hits in a complete-game win.

Well said: “We wanted it more. We had more fight.” – Ceriminaro