Stratford — A game that was bordering on anticlimactic suddenly had the entire stadium in a frenzied state Saturday afternoon at Frank DeLuca Hall of Fame Field, as Norwich Free Academy put the tying run in scoring position in the seventh inning of the Class LL championship game.

Out of reach?

Nah.

"Losing," NFA senior second baseman Hailee Schrader said, asked what prompted the seventh-inning outburst by the Wildcats. "We're a proud team. We have done very well this season with what we've had."

Eventually, No. 6 Southington left No. 8 NFA on the short end of a 7-6 score.

It was Southington's 18th state championship in program history, perhaps making the Blue Knights the favorites all along.

NFA all-state pitcher Bailey Comeau was perhaps less than 100 percent after taking a line drive off her pitching hand and leaving the game in Monday's 4-2 semifinal win over Cheshire. Comeau pitched three-plus innings against Southington, struggling with her command, before giving way to junior lefty Sophia DiCocco for the second straight game.

NFA made an uncharacteristic four errors, two of which led to unearned runs against Comeau.

Southington (22-3) led 7-2 after six innings.

And yet none of that stopped NFA, which suddenly sent a pulse through DeLuca Field, scoring their first four runners in the seventh to pull within 7-6 and sending Southington coach Davina Hernandez to the bullpen twice.

"If you look at most of our state championships, it's never smooth. It's never easy," Hernandez said. "I don't think we've ever not made it interesting. I don't think any team is going to get comfortable in a state championship game. (NFA is) just solid. We knew we could not get complacent against them."

DiCocco, the No. 6 hitter, led off the seventh for NFA (21-5) against Southington senior Julia Theriault, called on by Hernandez to start the seventh inning. Hernandez said it was her plan coming in to go to Theriault late.

DiCocco, however, greeted Theriault with an infield single to short and Alicia Abde's ground ball to second was misplayed. Hannah Daniewicz followed with a sharp ground ball off Southington's first baseman, going for an infield single, loading the bases with nobody out. Alex Burdick hit a ball which took a sharp hop past the shortstop for a two-run single, pulling NFA to within 7-4.

Hernandez then went to a freshman pitcher, Sam Sullivan, with runners on second and third and nobody out.

Schrader grounded to first to score one run and Julie Vincent blooped a single to right to make it 7-6. She took second on a wild pitch. Sullivan, however, retired the final two hitters to close the game.

"We were putting the ball in play hard that inning," NFA coach Bryan Burdick said. "We had the bases loaded with nobody out. Unfortunately, we just came up a hit short.

"... I really did think that we were going to play a lot better than we did, especially early. We had some nerves going on. We made four errors. We haven't made four errors in the last three games ... and they were two-base errors, three-base errors. That's not how you win a championship. Some teams don't capitalize on mistakes. (Southington) capitalized on every single one."

NFA scored a run in the top of the first to take the lead when Schrader reached on an error, was bunted to second by Vincent and scored on a single by Comeau.

Southington took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the inning. Chrissy Marotto led off with a double to left and Kelsey Fernandez laid down a sacrifice bunt and reached on an error. Comeau walked three in the inning and Southington scored on groundouts by Alex Rogers and Nikki Greco. The Blue Knights left the bases loaded.

Burdick provided a jolt for NFA in the third, homering over the left-center field fence and sprinting full speed around the bases to tie things at 2.

But Abby Lamson led off the bottom of the third with a triple to right for Southington. Rogers laid down a suicide squeeze to score Lamson and the throw to second to try to catch a still-running Rogers sailed into deep center field, allowing Rogers to come all the way around to score for a 4-2 lead.

Southington tacked on two in the fourth and one in the sixth.

v.fulkerson@theday.com