Bishop Gorman wastes large lead, recovers to outlast Durango

With his team leading 13-5 in the fourth inning Thursday, longtime Bishop Gorman softball coach Kevin Smith probably wasn’t expecting extra innings.

He gladly settled for a dramatic nine-inning road victory in a slugfest with Southwest League rival Durango.

Hannah Gondini doubled down the left-field line to knock in the go-ahead run, and the Gaels hung on for a 14-13 victory over the Trailblazers in a game in which the teams combined for 36 hits.

“They just found a way to win,” Smith said. “We played in a bunch of games in California this season where we found a way to lose. So I just congratulated them out there. … (Durango) has some really good hitters, so it was never over.”

Winning pitcher Samantha Stanfill led off the ninth with an infield single for Gorman (9-12, 3-3) and pinch runner Kasey Billadeau advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Reyna Martin.

As Martin was called out at first base on a bang-bang play, Billadeau rounded second base and slid beneath a tag at third to get into prime scoring position for Gorman’s top of the lineup.

Leadoff hitter Sierra Dias grounded out to third before Gondini’s two-out hit.

Gondini, who finished 3-for-6 with a double and two RBIs, drove a 1-2 pitch to left field to swing momentum back to the Gaels, who hadn’t scored since the fourth inning.

“The most important pitch of that at-bat was the one before where she fouled it out of play,” Smith said. “To take a pitch outside, in the middle of the letters down the line, was huge.”

Durango (11-16, 2-5), trailing 13-12 in the bottom of the seventh, tied the score on an RBI single by Mykayla Cutone to send the game into extra innings, but was held scoreless in the eighth and ninth.

Kaitlyn O’Hearn singled to start the bottom of the ninth, but was doubled up on Alia Armstrong’s attempted sacrifice bunt that was caught by a charging Billadeau at third base.

“Coaching 20 years, I’ve seen a few of these games,” Smith said. “As a coach, you always like those close ones. These are the type where anything can happen.”

Jasmine Gibson went 3-for-5 with two runs and an RBI for Gorman, and Morgan Blanner was 3-for-5 with a home run and five RBIs for the Gaels, who had 16 hits.

O’Hearn and Armstrong each had four hits for Durango, which got four RBIs apiece by Mallory Lawson and Cutone.

O’Hearn and Lawson each hit two-run homers for the Trailblazers, who finished with 20 hits.

Contact reporter Ashton Ferguson at aferguson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0430. Follow him on Twitter: @af_ferguson.