Granby beats Menchville to reach softball state tournament for first time, Nansemond River cruises.
Norfolk Public Schools have earned a reputation among the area elite annually in sports like football and basketball of either gender. Softball? Not so much.
Granby is changing that this season. The Comets’ latest highlight was their 9-1 win over Menchville on Wednesday in the Class 5 Region B semifinals at the Stoney Run Complex.
The victory moved the Comets (17-3) into the region championship game against Nansemond River at 6 p.m. Thursday at Stoney Run. Nansemond River blanked Gloucester 10-0 in five innings in the other semifinal. Regardless of the outcome of the region final, the Comets will move on to the Class 5 state quarterfinals next week.
That is a first for Granby in softball, a sport in which Norfolk schools have rarely been competitive with the area’s best in recent years.
“This means everything,” Comets coach Brandon Hairston said. “A school from Norfolk making a run for the state tournament, I think that kind of opens up the narrative that the girls in this part of the 757 can really bring it like the girls from Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.”
Although the Comets entered Wednesday’s game seeded No. 4 in the region tournament, their win over the No. 1 Monarchs (17-3) was not the upset that would suggest. The Comets played all four teams ranked No. 1 this spring in the 757Teamz rankings, beating Grassfield and Hickory while losing to season-ending No. 1 Nansemond-Suffolk Academy and No. 2 Nansemond River.
“The girls knew they were talented, but last year we didn’t get an opportunity to prove it,” Hairston said of a 2021 schedule mostly against teams in the weak Eastern District. “So we put this schedule together to prove we could play at that level.
“They had to know what they could do, and they learned that. I wanted them to have the ups and downs so they would be prepared for a game like today, where we were attempting to make history for Granby High School.”
Menchville (17-3) did its best to deny the Comets their milestone as senior Mikaila Foushee hit a home run in the bottom of the first to give her team a 1-0 lead. Lefty pitcher Josie Hartigan buoyed the Monarchs’ hopes by striking out four in the first two innings to keep the Comets in check.
But the Comets’ bats awoke, and they ran away with the game by launching three balls over the center-field fence, labeled “the 8-gate” by one of their very vocal legion of fans. Taylor Langston hit the first, a two-run shot to right-center that gave the Comets a 2-1 lead in the top of the third.
“To be honest, I just stuck [the bat] out there and didn’t feel at all it would be a home run until I looked up,” she said. “I knew [then] we were going to win.”
If there was any doubt, Cam Hamilton and Destiny Harris cleared the 8-gate in consecutive at-bats to increase the lead to 6-1 in the top of the fifth. Harris followed her homer to left-center with a bat flip that would’ve impressed Fernando Tatis Jr.
“We were up and I was happy and I just wanted to get my team hyped,” Harris said. “I’d rate [the bat flip] a 10.”
Hamilton did not flip her bat after her two-run homer to center, her eighth of the season. But clearly, after Natalie Anglim pitched the last out of her complete-game victory, Hamilton was just as happy to have been part of Granby history.
“It feels really amazing because we accomplished something that has never really happened before,” Hamilton said, before celebrating with a piece of cake provided by Wanda Barton, the grandmother of a Granby assistant coach and a player. “It was fun.”
In the other semifinal, Cierra Gawryluk pitched a no-hitter and struck out 11 for Nansemond River, while Kirsten Haley had a two-run hit.
