There was a split decision, and by similar final scores, the night of May 24 in Vienna when the Madison Warhawks hosted the McLean Highlanders in region-tournament semifinal baseball and softball games.
McLean won in baseball, 6-4, and Madison in girls softball, 6-5, as each winner advanced to the 6D North Region finals, where the Warhawks (19-4 and winners of 18 games in a row) are the defending champion in softball.
The loss ended the seasons for defending Class 6 state champions McLean (19-4) in softball and Madison (15-10) in baseball.
Last season, Madison and McLean met in both the region and Class 6 state-tournament softball title games.
• In this season’s softball final, Madison built leads of 2-0, 5-2 and 6-2, then McLean rallied for three runs in the top of the seventh and had two runners on when the final out was recorded.
For Madison, Sofia Marshall homered and had three RBI, Allison Creighton homered and had two hits, Tatum Novak doubled and Ayla Condill, Adhya Penati and Johanna Hostetler had hits.
Gennie Fagan homered, doubled, had three hits and two RBI for McLean (19-4). Madeline Staats doubled and had an RBI and Emory Hadden doubled and drove in two runs.
• In the region baseball final, Madison led 3-1 after the first inning, then McLean rallied to take a 6-3 lead. Helped by two errors and a hit batter, Madison scored once in the last of the seventh and had runners on base when the last out was recorded.
Jack Nance was the winning pitcher in relief for McLean, striking out nine in 5 2/3 innings.
Ryan Soong singled in the sixth and seventh innings to help McLean’s rally, Aydin Prell and Jackson Dailey each had RBI doubles, Ethan Ball doubled and a balk, a walk and error led to Highlander runs. Ball had a sacrifice fly in the first inning to score Gabe Pegues.
“We did a good job driving the ball the whole game and staying with our approach at the plate, and Jack Nance did a fantastic job,” McLean coach John Dowling said. “We did a good job of not getting discouraged when we fell behind early, when we were hitting the ball hard but right at people.”
The region semifinal win means McLean earns a berth to play in the Class 6 state tournament for the first time since 2014.
“We had a chance to break the game open but we didn’t,” Madison coach Mark Gjormand said. “We felt we needed another run or two early on.”
Madison scored three first-inning runs thanks to a two-run single by Niko Papathanasiou and a Carter Tuft RBI single. Cord Yates also singled in the first and Henry Novario was hit by a pitch.