Box Score DOYLESTOWN, Pa. – A resilient Manhattanville softball team overcame three separate deficits and took the lead for good in the bottom of the sixth inning as the top-seeded Valiants took out second-seeded King's (Pa.) by a 7-6 score in game three of the 2014 Freedom Conference Softball Championships, hosted by Delaware Valley on Friday.
 
Manhattanville (26-8) advances to the championship round of the tournament, having won its first two games for the first time in five years. The Valiants will play at 1 p.m. tomorrow against the last remaining team, needing just one win in a possible two games to capture its first Freedom Conference title. The Valiants are in very good shape headed into Saturday, as each of the last nine teams to win two on Friday have gone on to be crowned the conference champion – and only two teams (King's, 2010; DeSales, 2008) even needed the if-necessary seventh game to do so.
 
All nine Valiants had at least one hit and seven different players drove in runs in the comeback victory, which saw Manhattanville score in each of its final five at-bats to pull out the win. Junior Rosaria Callara (Scarsdale, N.Y./Scarsdale) went 2 for 4 with an RBI and two runs scored at the top of the lineup, while senior Shauna Mulkerin (Branchburg, N.J./Immaculata), sophomore Alyx Scapperotti (Harrison, N.Y./Harrison) and freshman Dolores Diemicke (North Massapequa, N.Y./Plainedge) all had two hits each to lead the 13-hit attack.
 
King's (27-9) cracked the scoreboard first in the top half of the second inning, when Maggie Gola led off with a double and came home on a Tina Seber RBI single. But the Valiants got that back with one swing in the bottom half courtesy of senior Alyssa Taylor (Craik, Sask./Craik), who launched a Brittany Haight pitch over the centerfield fence to even the score. The senior's 13th homer of the year increased her own program record and moved her into third on the Freedom Conference's single-season list.
 
The Lady Monarchs went ahead for the second time in the third inning thanks to a sacrifice fly, but again Manhattanville responded in the bottom half. This time it was Diemicke providing the clutch hit, lacing a two-out single to center that scored Callara.
 
The see-saw battle continued with two King's runs in the fourth inning, courtesy of an Erin Beane RBI groundout and a run-scoring single by Amanda Cardone. However, the Valiants replied in kind for the third straight inning, this time scoring three times to take its first lead.

Again the bottom half of the order served as the catalyst for the Valiants. Freshman Brittany Deieso (Brewster, N.Y./Brewster) made it a 4-3 game with an RBI single to score senior Kirsten Savage (Harrington Park, N.J./Old Tappan), and Mulkerin followed with a run-scoring double to knot the score at four. After Rachel Linso came on in relief of Haight, Callara greeted her with an RBI single that gave Manhattanville its first lead of the afternoon.
 
The Valiants added another run in the fifth inning, when senior Emily Frawley (White Plains, N.Y./White Plains) reached on an infield grounder to score Diemicke. But King's showed its ability to bounce back as well in the sixth, thanks to a two-run, two-out double by Cardone that evened the score at six.
 
And yet, Manhattanville's resiliency came through again in the bottom half, as the Valiants scored for the fifth straight inning to regain the lead for good. Callara led off the inning with a double and, after a sacrifice bunt by Scapperotti moved her to third with one out, Damianos provided perhaps the biggest hit of her stellar freshman season, a single though the left side that plated Callara to give the Valiants a lead once again.
 
Just three outs from victory, Taylor shut the door with a 1-2-3 seventh inning, securing the team's place in the title game. Taylor (24-6) did not have her best stuff against a potent King's lineup, but still earned her 14th consecutive victory by working around 11 hits in seven frames. Linso (6-3) suffered the loss in relief of Haight, allowing two runs on four hits in 2.2 innings.