Staff photo / Neel Madhavan. McDonald pitcher Isabella O’Brien fires a pitch against Jackson-Milton Tuesday evening. O’Brien threw all seven innings on Tuesday and only allowed three hits while striking out 15 in the Blue Devils’ 3-2 win.

MCDONALD — Isabella O’Brien has been on a tear to start the season, and her play in the circle is a big reason why McDonald remains undefeated.

After pitching a no-hitter in the Blue Devils’ first game against Jackson-Milton on Monday, O’Brien came back the next day and delivered once again, striking out 15 in McDonald’s 3-2 victory over the Bluejays to complete the series sweep.

“She threw very well, and she hit her spots just like she should have,” McDonald head coach Michelle Titus said. “I was very impressed with that. She did her job.”

The biggest difference between the first game and the second game is that the Jackson-Milton hitters finally started getting their bats on O’Brien’s pitches.

O’Brien gave up five hits on Tuesday, but still delivered in clutch moments. In the fourth inning, after the Bluejays got two runners in scoring position, Jackson-Milton scored one run off a wild pitch, but O’Brien responded with back-to-back strikeouts to close out the inning and end the threat.

Then again in the sixth inning, with the bases loaded, O’Brien struck out Jackson-Milton’s Maggie Simkins with the Blue Devils clinging to a two-run lead.

“(She) takes the pressure off the rest of the team,” Titus said. “Sometimes you can’t be too lax with that though because sometimes they just wait for that, but it does help when you know that she could take over and deliver a strikeout.”

However, O’Brien still had one last clutch play to deliver.

After Camelia Blackmon opened the top of the seventh inning with a lead-off double, Brena McBeth was able to bring her home with an RBI to make it a one-run game. But in the next at-bat, O’Brien closed things out with her final strikeout of the game to secure the narrow victory for the Blue Devils.

“We saw her yesterday, too — she’s probably the best we’ve seen so far (this season),” said Jackson-Milton head coach Mariah Ciccolelli. “She’s a great pitcher. It’s hard to know what she’s throwing. I tell the girls to do their homework in the dugout — look at what kind of patterns of pitches she’s throwing and things like that. We adjusted (Tuesday), and knowing what to expect, we were just being aggressive on the first and second strikes.”

McBeth got the start in the circle for Jackson-Milton after Macayle Thornhill pitched all seven innings Monday. McBeth started strong, going three-up, three-down in the first inning, but she slowly started to unravel in the second — walking three batters and giving up McDonald’s first run off a hit by Bri McCombs.

After that, McBeth made way for Thornhill, who finished out the game. Still though, despite the short leash, McBeth finished with three strikeouts compared to Thornhill’s one.

“(Thornhill) threw all seven yesterday and pitched wonderfully, so we wanted to give Brena a start against them,” Ciccolelli said. “She’s a freshman, so we wanted her to get her feet wet and get used to the big games. I told her she’d have a short leash, so if she was walking a couple, we would put Macayle back in there, but (McBeth) does a great job at second base too, so we have a lot of confidence in her.”

Gianna Mancini and Alivia Morrison batted in the other two runs for McDonald in the third inning.

“We hit the ball hard,” Titus said. “In the game of softball, you hit it two feet to the left or right, it makes it a different ballgame. Jackson-Milton really wanted this game and they played really hard. They did a great job.”

Next up for McDonald (5-0) is a trip to Maplewood on Thursday, while Jackson-Milton (2-5) travels to Warren JFK on Thursday, as well.

nmadhavan@tribtoday.com