By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

HATTIESBURG — The season came to an end for St. Patrick here Thursday afternoon with a 7-5 loss to Mantachie.

The decision, in game two of the best of thee Class 3A state championship series, gives the Lady Mustangs their first-ever state title. The Lady Irish were attempting to capture their first since 2018.

“Very proud of these young ladies for their grit, fight, effort and determination,” Mantachie head coach Kristi Montgomery said. “They have given it their all all season long and it has paid off for them.”

The Lady Mustangs won game one in convincing fashion on Wednesday 13-0 in just five frames. Mantachie finishes the season at 34-5, while St. Patrick ends up at 23-14. Both games were played at The University of Southern Mississippi Softball Complex.

Game two was knotted up at 3-3 entering the bottom of the second stanza after the Lady Irish erased an early 3-1 deficit with a pair of runs including Zoriah Martin’s RBI-single in the top of the inning. Sophia Oehms, who led off the frame with a walk, also scored on a passed ball.

Brooklyn Mitchell plated St. Patrick’s first run on a run-scoring single in the top of the first, before Mantachie responded with three runs in the bottom of that session and two more in its next at bat to break that 3-3 tie and take a 5-3 advantage it would never relinquish.

The Lady Mustangs stretched that lead to 7-3 with two more runs in the third.

St. Patrick made a move late, as Mitchell led off the top of the sixth with a double and Rowan Romano followed that with a walk. Oehms then drove in both runs on a bunt-single that turned into a two-run hit to make it 7-5.

But that would it for the Lady Irish, as MHS pitcher Ramsey Montgomery came back out in the seventh and set the SPHS hitters down in order to secure the state crown.

A right-hander who is Mantachie’s only pitcher, Montgomery also got the win in game one and in the process did not allow a hit, struck out six and walked two. She went the distance in the circle in both games.

St. Patrick head coach Ted Williams guided the Fighting Irish into the state finals for the first time since 2018 with a team that has just three seniors and two juniors, but six middle-schoolers and six freshmen.

“This is the first time our girls have been in it in a long time, and I think nerves had a lot to do with it, especially in game one” said Williams. “We’re really young. We’ve got two eighth-graders starting, we’ve got two freshmen starting and a pitcher that’s a seventh-grader.”

St. Patrick actually out-hit Mantachie on Thursday 6-5, but it wasn’t enough to force and third and final game and keep the season alive for the Lady Irish for another day as the Lady Irish also committed five errors to harm their cause.