NEWARK - "Amazing," said winning pitcher Julianna Santangelo, the junior right-hander who also provided the game-winning hit.
"Unstoppable," said second baseman Avital Kandel, who made all the plays in the field, including backing up for an assist that prevented Bound Brook from taking a two-run lead. Kandel, a sophomore, also drove in Dayton's first run to tie the game in the top of the sixth.
"Surreal," said Dayton head coach Dave Rennie, who in the second stint of his third season as head coach two years ago guided Dayton to its first Union County Tournament championship and now in his fifth year led the Bulldogs to their first sectional state title and their initial state crown.
Dayton, the North 2, Group 1 champion, scored two runs in the top of the sixth to come back and beat Bound Brook, the Central Jersey, Group 1 champ, 2-1 in the Friday, June 12, NJSIAA Group 1 state championship game played on Mike Sheppard, Sr. Field at Ivy Hill Park.
Dayton captured its first-ever state championship with 12 losses, the Bulldogs finished 19-12, won the game on the 12th of June and not only did Santangelo retire the home team Crusaders on 12 pitches in the bottom of the seventh, but she also set down the final 12 batters she faced after allowing the only hit she gave up.
Santangelo tossed a one-hitter that included nine strikeouts and three walks. Santangelo struck out the side in the second, struck out five batters in a row at one point, and was perfect in four of the seven innings she tossed.
"It's hard to describe how she handles it," Rennie said. "She has a way of working through the walks and the errors and grinding it out. She is focused and really wants it and again, today, saved her best pitching for the game's final innings."
Dayton played errorless softball but had to overcome the first of the three walks Santangelo issued. Santangelo walked the first batter she faced in the bottom of the first and that batter came around to score following a sacrifice bunt that moved her to second, a wild pitch that put her on third and a sacrifice fly to center by the team's best hitter that brought her home.
In the third Dayton had its leadoff batter reach on a walk and then No. 9 batter Jessica Miller connected on the hardest-hit ball of the game up until that point when she lined a shot to center. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs it resulted in an 8-3 lineout double play.
Dayton's next batter, leadoff hitter Aubrie Cantagallo, hit a shot down the right field line that went for a standup triple. Lila Carroll followed with a pop-up to short to end the threat, but Dayton proved that it was starting to hit the Bound Brook pitcher pretty well.
Kandel led off the top of the fourth with a triple down the left field line that fell right in front of the left fielder. It was hit high enough for Kandel to get all the way to third. Santangelo then walked to put runners on the corners with still nobody out.
Dayton then ran into some bad luck again when Carolyn Cantagallo hit a shot to third that the third baseman gloved and then touched the bag for another Bound Brook double play, the second of three the Somerset County squad pulled off.
Rachael Gurczeski, who drove in the only Bound Brook run on her sacrifice fly to center in the first, led off the bottom of the fourth with what would be her team's only hit, a double to the left-center field fence. Santangelo bounced back by getting the next batter to ground out to second, the one after that to pop up a bunt to the catcher and the one after that to ground out to second.
While Bound Brook took advantage of a leadoff walk to score its lone run in the bottom of the first, Dayton took advantage of Bound Brook's second error leading off the top of the sixth. Carroll hit a fly ball to right-center that the Bound Brook center fielder moved over a bit to her right to catch, but dropped. Kandel then drove a pitch to the left-center field fence for an RBI-double that brought home Carroll to tie the game at 1-1. Santangelo followed with an opposite-field RBI-single to right that plated Kandel and all of a sudden after not scoring in their first five at-bats, Dayton had the lead for the first time at 2-1 in the sixth
