Kate Schwerzler was waiting for the green light to drop down a bunt.
“I’m very confident in bunting and Coach (Sydney) Pace gave me the green light, so I was just ready to go,” Schwerzler said. “I usually have the green light to bunt, so I’m always ready to do it no matter what.”
Schwerzler and Anastasia Guy were ready, Bayonne was not. And the result was the first Hudson County softball title for Kearny in a decade.
With the game tied in the bottom of the fifth Schwerzler dropped down a perfectly placed bunt into an unoccupied space between the pitcher’s circle and third base. It created an opening for Guy, Kearny’s fastest runner to score all the way from second base for the go-ahead run, propelling the Kardinals to a 5-4 victory over Bayonne in the Hudson County Tournament final on Saturday at North Bergen’s 64th Street Field.
It is Kearny’s third ever Hudson County championship, joining the ones it won in 2014 and 2016.
“(Kate) does that a lot herself. I didn’t call that play, but she reads the game very well,” Kearny head coach Jim Pickel said. “She is a very special person. She’s our only senior that starts every day. She really deserves this.”
“I knew I could place it,” said Schwerzler. “I knew Anastasia was on and she’s really fast.”
Guy was hit by a pitch to lead off the fifth. The junior centerfielder promptly stole second base on the next pitch, one where Schwerzler showed bunt, but decided to pull the bat back.
The second pitch saw Schwerzler show and then lay down the bunt, which bounced beyond the reach of pitcher Sophia Diaz as Guy never broke stride, rounding third as she scored standing up without a throw.
“I just ran. Yeah. I just ran,” said Guy. “And when the ball passed the pitcher, I just went home.”
Schwerzler scored what proved to be a crucial insurance run three batters later on catcher Madison Rodriguez’s RBI single.
In the top of the seventh, Bayonne led off with a walk, only for Rodriguez, from her catcher position, to pick her off for the first out. The Bees’ Lilah Gomez launched a solo homer over the left field fence to cut the Kearny lead in half, but pitcher Abigail Buchanan remained unfazed, sandwiching a walk with a pair of groundouts to put the finishing touches on the win.
Buchanan, the most heralded member of Kearny’s stellar group of five freshmen starters, struck out five on the day, overcoming six walks and nine hits to pick up the win.
Those freshmen made their presence felt almost immediately on Saturday. Down 1-0 in the bottom of the first inning, Schwerzler, freshman Gabby Martinez and Buchanan drew consecutive walks to load the bases, leading to another freshman, Ryleigh Chesney, to hit a bases-clearing single to right field that gave Kearny (21-1) a 3-1 lead.
“This team is very special,” Pickel said “I’ve been waiting (for this class) for years because I’ve been watching these kids play since they were little and I knew they were going to be a strong group and I was just waiting for them. This is an incredible group.”
This freshmen class, a group that included seven on the varsity roster for Saturday’s title game, came into the season with considerable hype after, as middle schoolers in Kearny Recreation, they won the 14U District 5 title for the first time.
Combined with talented holdovers like Guy, Schwerzler, Rodriguez, and P/OF Cassandra Montalvo, there was a belief they can do big things right away, especially when it blasted Bayonne, 13-1, in the regular season opener.
“When we had our preseason trip to Myrtle Beach, I saw the talent and I thought that we all gelled really well together, but ever since the first game against Bayonne,” Schwerzler said. “I knew that it was something special and we were going to do something good this season.”
“Our first game we played and it clicked right away,” said Buchanan. “After our scrimmages, all of us realized that we can work together and our team can be literally unstoppable.”
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Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)