Mia Zuccarelli’s four RBI day powers Cinnaminson to season opening win

Cinnaminson's Mia Zuccarelli swings at a pitch against Northern Burlington in the softball game played at Northern Burlington County High School in Columbus, New Jersey on Monday, March 31, 2025. Collin Conway/D2 Sports Network

COLUMBUS (N.J) - Looking to start the season off on the right foot, the Cinnaminson High School softball team traveled up Route 295 to Northern Burlington High School.

The Pirates scraped out a 5-3 win in extra innings over Northern Burlington.

Northern Burlington's Riley Pieloch scored the game's first run on a double, followed by a pair of errors, allowing Pieloch to cruise home in the bottom of the first inning.

Cinnaminson responded in the third with a bases-clearing, three-run double by Fairleigh Dickinson commit Mia Zuccarelli to put the Pirates in the driver's seat.

Madison Fontana cut into the lead with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fifth, then tied the game with a two-out RBI single to right field.

The Pirates retook the lead on an RBI double by Zuccarelli in the top of the eighth, which she'd be driven in a few pitches later by Salisbury commit Hannah Derbyshire. Derbyshire clamped down in the home half of the eighth and rolled a 4-6-3 double play to end the contest, giving Cinnaminson a season-opening win to start the 2025 campaign.

Derbyshire tossed a complete game, going eight innings, allowing five hits, four walks, and two earned runs, and struck out 11 batters. Zuccarelli went 3-for-4 at the plate with a pair of doubles, a single, and four runs batted in. The duo made it a priority to start the season off with a win.

"We knew they were a good team coming into this game," Derbyshire said. "We've faced (Mikayla) Fontana a few times already over the year, so we knew what we were going to see today. Getting a win regardless if it was in extra innings or not was always the goal."

After tallying just 11 total RBIs a season ago, Zuccarelli already has more than one-third of her runs batted in after the first game of the new season. The junior came up clutch for her team today, giving Cinnaminson the lead late and never looking back.

"I just knew I had to come through for my team in those spots," Zuccarelli said. "It felt good to get those hits after striking out in my first at-bat. Everyone on the team did their job today, it wasn't just one person who did all of the work."