Dulaney sophomore pitchers Rayna Harpster and Madison Schupple combined to allowed five hits and one run and junior catcher Carley Desi made a clutch throw on a stolen base attempt late in the game to preserve a 2-1 victory at Catonsville on Tuesday.

“We have two amazing pitchers,” Desi said. “Rayna, obviously being a lefty has so much advantage. She has good speed, good movement on the ball, definitely knows how to get the job done, and obviously Madison does too, coming in and finishing it for us.”

“[Rayna’s] a good pitcher. She spins the ball well and she throws a great changeup and her fastball is pretty decent, so she’s got all the tools,” Dulaney coach Dave Barwick added. “[Madison] throws heat, but she’s got a great rise ball and she’s got a faster changeup, but her fastball is faster, so she can get away with that and got a great screwball. So that keeps them off balance.”

It was the fourth straight win to start the season for the No. 6 Lions, while Catonsville dropped to 1-1.

“It’s the first time in three or four years we did that [4-0],” Barwick said.

Dulaney got on the board in the top of the first when Kimani Dennis reached on a two-out error, stole second and scored on a run-scoring single by Desi.

“Just hit the sweet spot on my bat, looking for contact,” Desi said.

Dulaney tacked on another run in the bottom of the third when Schupple drilled a double to left-center and scored on an RBI single by Dennis.

That was all the Lions could muster for four innings against Catonsville starting pitcher Amy Montgomery-Snoke, who allowed three hits, before Kaia Gross tossed three one-hit shutout innings.

“Our pitchers have been working really, really hard on their spins and their junk, and they just really been hitting their spots. They’ve been lights out,” first-year Catonsville coach Ry Harvey said.

Catonsville had a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the second inning, but caught a bad break.

Olivia Parton drew a one-out walk and two batters later, Clara Nelson drilled a ball over the left fielder’s head. Parton would have easily scored and Nelson would have reached third, but the ball went under the fence and was ruled a ground-rule-double, so both runners retreated a base.

Harpster retired Lilly Barone for the final out.

“That would have been disastrous,” Barwick said. “If it hits the fence, we get it in anyway, if it stays in play a little bit they get that run.”

Harvey reminded her team of plays like that after the game.

“We were just telling them that sometimes things just don’t fall your way, like hitting the ball hard and not catching any breaks,” she said.

The Comets finally got on board in the bottom of the fifth with a run the Lions considered a momentum-killing out.

Kylie Tran drew a leadoff walk and stole second. Schupple replaced Harpster on the mound and Gross greeted her with a high shallow single to right that advanced Tran to third with no outs. One pitch later, Gross was gunned down at second trying to steal, while Tran stole home for the Comets’ only run.

“I was a little nervous because I was doubting my arm a bit, but you know I just listened to my coach, throw it anyway and it worked out for us so it was good,” Desi said.

Schupple retired the next eight batters, five on strikeouts, and the Comets never threatened again.

“We thought we were in a little trouble,” Barwick said. “We didn’t want to put that runner in scoring position, so we just decided to take the out and let one score and go from there and it worked out perfectly for us.”

Harvey took over the coaching reigns this season from Paul Harris, who guided the Comets to the state championship in 2021 and the state semis in 2022, but the new coach has some familiarity with several players because she coached JV last year and has been pleasantly surprised already this season.

“Coming off of last year’s record (3-15-1), a lot of teams expect us to come out here and just like do the same thing and I think we’ve been working really hard with the girls on their mental game and that’s like half the battle for them and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

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