Narisi’s slam powers Archbishop Wood to District 12-AAA title

PHILADELPHIA >> The wait was a stressful one for Archbishop Wood.

After running into a hot pitcher in their Philadelphia Catholic League quarterfinal loss to Hallahan, the Vikings had to sit and wait to see if their special season would even continue. So they waited, taking some needed days off and got the breaks they needed.

They had been given the chance to play for a District 12 title. They didn’t waste it.

Powered by senior first baseman Andria Narisi’s grand slam, Wood throttled Nueva Esperanza 13-1 in the District 12 Class AAA championship game Wednesday at La Salle University. Things were a little too tight until the senior co-captain crushed one to dead-away center to restore calm.

“To me, this is actually incredible,” Narisi said. “Leading a team to this, as a freshman I was on varsity and I never would have imagined that if you told us we’d be district champs that we would actually be district champs.”

In just their second year under coach Kevin Rosini, the Vikings are in fact, district champs. It’s a testament to the seniors in Narisi, Jess Atwell and Katie Barrett who instilled an early mandate on how things would be this year.

Wednesday, against a Public League team with pitching that had to work just to throw strikes, the Vikings wanted to waste no time in putting the game away. But after an inning, Wood’s lead was just 2-0 and they had left the bases loaded.

Fortunately, they had their leader come up an inning later with the bases again loaded. This time, all of those runs scored with a single swing.

“The first at-bat I wasn’t on the ball good enough, but I knew I had to keep my hands back,” Narisi said. “That’s all I had to do and I just watched the ball and made sure I hit it right on my contact point.”

That was the big shot in a five-run inning and though Esperanza pulled one back in the third, Wood added three runs in the third and fourth innings to put the run-rule into effect. Vikings sophomore ace Marisa Browne was solid, allowing just two hits but it wasn’t the sharpest day for the team’s normally solid defense with three errors.

Narisi led the team with four RBIs but designated player Gia Lancellotti wasn’t far behind with three RBIs on a 3-for-3 day that included a triple with two runs scored. Center fielder Taylor Carter was 3-for-4, scoring three times and also bringing in a total of four runs with her last two hits. Jess Donchez walked and scored twice as did Atwell. Barrett had an RBI walk and scored a run while Kirstin Wilson singled and scored in the third.

“The game was a little tighter than we wanted to be but (Narisi) is our leader,” Rosini said. “When she’s hitting well and bopping the ball all over the place, we all feel better. Today she did that and I think it let us all take a big sigh of relief and say this is our game to win now.”

Wood is not a senior-laden team. Carter and Browne are sophomores, Lancellotti and Donchez are freshmen and third baseman Sophie Kent and catcher Lanie Boyk are juniors, to name a few but the Vikings follow their upperclassmen leaders.

Narisi singled out the team’s defense as one of the biggest reasons for its jump this year. The Vikings have been pretty clean behind Browne, who is in her first year with the program. But the off-the-field dynamic has been just a key.

“There’s no drama at all and we’ve bonded well together,” Narisi said. “I had high hopes for this team, I really thought we were going to be good. We lost our first game and the hopes went down a little bit but we went on a streak after that and all the hopes came back from there.”

Even in losses, Narisi said the team was able to take things and learn from its mistakes. The senior said she was anxious after losing to Hallahan but the team kept working like it was going to have another game so when the news came down, they were ready to go.

Narisi and her fellow seniors will get at least one more game, against the District I runner-up. While either Bishop Shanahan or Villa Maria will test the Vikings, Wood is keeping the focus on itself and enjoying the moment.

“I’m happy for this group, this group deserved to win a championship of some sort,” Rosini said. “That’s what we got, we’re district champions. That’s pretty good stuff. From where we were when we took over this program until now, I couldn’t be any happier with where we’re at. But, hopefully, the run’s not over yet.”