RALEIGH — For many, the prospect of the East Surry Cardinals being a legitimate threat to win another 1A softball title in 2010 was unlikely.

After Saturday, it’s apparent they were wrong.

With a convincing 5-0 win over Swain County at the Walnut Creek Softball Complex, the Cardinals put all doubters aside and captured their third consecutive 1A crown and their fourth in six seasons.

Senior pitcher Hayley Shelton was named the tournaments Most Valuable Player on the back of three straight shutout wins and 36 strikeouts.

It was the third straight MVP plaque for Shelton, who finished her career as the Cardinals’ all-time winningest pitcher with 54, four better than recent Campbell graduate Karlie Love.

If Shelton was the MVP on the mound, East’s Julie Bullington was right on her heels with her performance at the plate. Bullington finished the two-day tournament with a hand in nearly half of the Cardinals’ eight total runs and was behind the plate for all-three of Shelton’s gems.

With the hectic aftermath of the post title celebration all around, East coach Derrick Hill said it was hard to put a win like Saturday’s in perspective quickly, but he could think of nothing sweeter than ending the season with a win.

“To be honest, they don’t sink in for a day or two, but I think when it finally does this may be the most special one ever,” Hill said. “Because of some adversity and doubters and the fact we beat a good team in Swain. I think part of the final score was (Shelby) Parker being a little tired from the first game but that’s what you get when you are in the losers bracket.”

Senior Samantha Smith, who along with Shelton are the only three-time state title winners in East Surry softball history, said even she had her doubts at the start of the season, but that Saturday’s outcome just went to show how much talent the East Surry program has in its coffers.

“It feels great, but to tell you the truth at the beginning of the year I didn’t think we were going to be here,” Smith said. “You can ask anybody. Last year it was unreal because we went five games, and this year it’s sweet because people didn’t expect us to be here. People put us down to a lower level even before halfway through the season and now we’ve just showed everybody we are number one.”

After the Cardinals upended Swain in Friday’s opener 1-0, the Maroon Devils went into the losers bracket and had to take out Midway Saturday morning for the right to have another shot at East.

With the past three meetings between the two teams decided by no more than two runs, a classic pitchers duel seemed to be in the works once again.

That’s exactly what the crowd in Raleigh got, until the Cardinals opened the scoring in the bottom of the third, when shortstop Jessica Barker beat out an infield single to start the inning and freshman Kristen Cummings quickly advanced the runner with a bunt.

Leadoff hitter Samantha Smith then smacked an RBI double to left to put East up 1-0, the final score from the Cardinals’ win Friday night over Swain.

The bottom half of the Cardinal line up came up big again, this time in the bottom of the fifth, when Barker led off the inning with a walk from Swain ace Shelby Parker.

Barker eventually ended up at third after a sacrifice bunt from Kristen Cummings, and then Shelton, who just became a part of the Cardinals lineup this season, laid down a perfect slap hit which stifled the Swain pitcher and allowed Barker to score and Shelton to reach first with two outs and the Cardinals with a 2-0 lead.

Later, with Shelton nursing a perfect game into the top of the sixth, all the momentum seemed to be in East’s favor.

Swain’s Brittany Shuler scratched Shelton’s run at perfection and picked up the Maroon Devil’s only hit of the game with two outs. Swain’s big bat Kayla Myers then reached on an infield error to put the go-ahead run at the plate with runners on first and second.

The next Swain batter went deep into the count with Shelton and the game seemed to hang in the balance.

But a line drive to deep right field was beautifully snagged by senior Hannah Merritt, who continually came up big defensively for the Cardinals all weekend.

After the demoralizing end to what could have been a game winning rally, the wheels came off for Swain.

Swain’s Parker walked Beth Isaacs to start things off in the bottom of the sixth and as she did a day earlier, Bullington made her mark, ripping a deep shot to left, which just barely stayed inside the park. Isaacs scored and Swain looked visibly rattled.

The rally continued when Christian Smith laid down a bunt, and when Swain mishandled the throw, pinch runner Evelyn Wells scored from second base.

In the confusion and dismay for Swain, Smith slyly made her way all the way to third, for a bunt triple.

With East up 4-0, Cummings showed her worth with a two out RBI single to score Smith and all but engrave East Surry’s name on the championship plaque.

Swain head coach Toby Burrell, whose team has been eliminated by East the past three seasons, said he thought his team was tired after playing in the heat earlier Saturday, but that East still made plays when it counted most.

“East was a little fresher than us, I think was a big thing,” he said. “They were able to take advantage when they got people on, and when you get two good pitchers you’re only going to get so many cracks to score. Hayley did a good job limiting our opportunities there when we rattled her in the sixth and she wiggled out of it. We wiggled out of some early, but as the game wore on we weren’t able to wiggle out quite as much. They hit some good pitches and made some big plays and that’s what it takes to be a state champion. You’ve got to make more plays than your opponent and East certainly did that.”

While Shelton garnered the hardware for the top player in the tournament, the senior put things in perspective of just how important the team-first mentality the Cardinals have cultivated over the years is to being a champion.

“It’s awesome, but to me I depend on my team so it’s not really on me.” Shelton said. “A lot of people doubted us this year. They really didn’t think we would make it, so we had to prove ourselves. But that just gave us another reason to want it that much more. At the beginning of the year we knew we had to come together and it took us halfway through the season to get everybody pushing together but now we are just like a family. I hate that it’s ending now but we made a lot of memories we won’t ever forget.”