1st-ever national championship tough to
put into words for victorious Cardinals

SALEM, Va. — "Incredible."

"Unreal."

"Unbelievable."

"A dream come true."

Take your pick.

Whether it's Gina Rizzardi's "Incredible," or Teisha Smith's "Unreal," or Kateri Eddy's "Unbelievable," what the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team accomplished Sunday afternoon was indescribable.

The Cardinals became the first team in school history to capture a national championship Sunday, shutting out Chapman 5-0 behind the four-hit pitching of Smith and the offensive exploits of Jackie Huegel and Jennifer Miller.

"Our goal every year at the start of the season is to finish in the top 10 in the country," said SMU coach John Tschida, whose team did not lose a game in the 2000 post-season, beating Benedictine, Central and Coe to win the Midwest Regional, then rolling over Ithaca, The College of New Jersey and Chapman twice in the national tournament. "To win the national championship … it's quite an accomplishment."

Quite.

"Every year you say you'd love to win a national title, but to actually do it, it's unreal," said Smith, who did not walk a batter and struck out two in winning for the seventh straight time in the post-season and running her unbeaten string to 18 straight starts. "To actually reach this point, something we've been pointing for for so long, it's hard to put into words."Their actions, however, spoke volumes.

Appearing in their first-ever national tournament, the Cardinals were as calm, cool and collected as ever.

When the going got tough — the Cardinals got tougher.

"We approached (the Chapman) game just like every other game to this point," said third baseman Gina Rizzardi, who went 1-for-2 with an RBI in the title-clinching win over Chapman and finished with a .364 batting average in the team's four championship series games. "You can't get yourself too caught up in all the hype and stuff. We knew what we were playing for, but we also knew that if we were going to win it, we needed to stay focused and calm."

If the Cardinals did have any title-game jitters, they were quickly calmed by the bat of Huegel, who laced a two-out, two-run home run over the left-field fence in the top of the first to give SMU a 2-0 advantage.

"I wasn't expecting to hit a home run, that's for sure," admitted Huegel, who finished with a .545 average for the tournament, while also driving in five runs. "I was just going up there looking for a base hit, trying to find a pitch that I could drive. When I hit it, I knew I hit it well, but I didn't think I hit it good enough to go out, then, when I rounded first I saw that it cleared the fence and I just thought, ‘Wow!’ "

Which was exactly what Chapman was saying about the pitching performance of Smith.

"(Teisha) did a great job," admitted Chapman coach Janet Lloyd, whose team finished runner-up for the third straight year and the fourth time in the last five years. "She kept us off balance and was in control from beginning to end."

Tschida agreed.

"Teisha pitched a great game," praised Tschida. "She had good stuff and she hit her spots well."

When the Panthers were able to put their bat on the ball, the Cardinal defense was air tight.

"We pride ourselves on our defense," said Eddy, who replaced the injured Niki Lynch at second base for the last two games of the tournament and finished with a putout and five assists in six opportunities. "We were all just so focused, we knew what we had to do and we just went out and did it."

The Cardinals put the game out of reach in the top of the sixth, scoring three times — two of the runs coming on a Jennifer Miller two-out double, scoring Angie Wright and Rizzardi.

"This was such a team effort," said Tschida, whose team closed out the season winning 16 straight and 27 of their last 28 to finish with a 40-6 overall record. "We had a complete team of 19 players, all of which came through at different times during the season. We didn't have to rely on one or two players to carry us — everyone carried each other.

"How does it feel?," Tschida continued. "That's hard to put it into words."

Unbelievable works.

So does unreal, incredible and a dream come true.