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The play was designed to — well, no, it wasn’t exactly designed. Jeff Bevino confirmed it before Dani Kemp did: Bevino gave no sign to call the game-winning play in Foran’s 7-6 victory over Amity in Saturday’s SCC final. The Lions have talked about it in practices, but it wasn’t a play the coaching staff signaled to Kemp at second base with one out in the bottom of the seventh.

The freshman thought Amity wasn’t paying attention to her. When Spartans pitcher Heather Ferranti fell behind Fallon Bevino 2-0, Kemp was proven right.

Kemp, who’d stolen second the usual way a few minutes earlier, took off for third as the ball came back to the circle. The Spartans alerted each other. Ferranti threw to third. It skipped away. Jeff Bevino yelled for Kemp to get up and pointed toward the plate. (“I was in the moment,” she said.) She scampered home.

The Lions were champions.

It looked like it’d be easy. After watching Jess Harkness shut down Mercy on Friday night, then easily retire Amity the first time through the lineup, I wouldn’t have wanted to bet that Amity would get six baserunners the rest of the night, let alone the six runs it needed to tie.

It wasn’t easy. At all. The Spartans began manufacturing runs in the fourth, beginning with Emily Fox’s bunt single.

“Down six runs, you’ve got nothing to lose,” Amity coach Bob Purcell said.

“We executed the stuff we had to. We must’ve laid down four or five bunts.”

They worked out a 10-batter fifth inning, lots of little plays and Harkness’ only two walks, to tie it with four runs.

“They put some pressure on us,” Jeff Bevino said. “We booted a couple of balls, which is very uncharacteristic for us.”

But Bevino was darned impressed with his pitcher. Harkness got the last two outs to leave the bases loaded. She wound up striking out 11.

Before it looked like it’d be easy… Amity starter Dana Blydenburg seemed to have the stuff to get Foran’s powerful lineup off-balance. A few changeups, a little movement, and she started the game with a strikeout and got ahead of Kemp 1-2. But Kemp dunked a single into right. Marissa Bruno drove her in with a hard double to left-center. In a blink, it was 5-0.

Heather Ferranti replaced Blydenburg with two out, and she pitched an effective game. She allowed just four hits and didn’t walk a batter until Kemp, leading off the seventh.

“They put up a fight, both of them,” Foran first baseman Gina Georgetti said.

Next up: the state tournament. Both teams have a chance to make some noise, Amity in LL and Foran, defending champs, in L. You know, weather permitting.

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This was almost a good game. Well, let’s not go nuts here: Surely if you’re a Foran fan you loved it under any circumstances, and when things end up 8-0, it’s hard to say this wasn’t going in a direction.

But it was almost a scoreless game after three innings. Ashley Petit of Mercy had two outs and a runner, Alyssa Puccilli, on second after Puccilli’s bunt single and an Ashley Mendillo sacrifice.

Problem for Petit was that Dani Kemp stood in her way. Kemp deposited a 2-1 pitch over the left-field wall.

Foran 2, Mercy 0. You don’t want to say “ballgame,” but, um, ballgame.

“(Kemp, a freshman catcher) has done it all year long,” Foran coach Jeff Bevino said. “She’s strong. … She’s going to be something to be reckoned with. And how about that throw in the first inning? That girl (Steph Mangiamelli, whom Kemp caught stealing) ain’t slow.”

So it was 2-0, but then Foran gets three more two-out hits, a liner to right by Marissa Bruno and singles up the middle from Gina Georgetti and Fallon Bevino, and it’s 3-0.

Yeah, ballgame.

While we’re on defense: Jess Harkness struck out 15. This has apparently become pretty routine. She walked three, but only one ball made it to the outfield, a flyout. The other five outs were the caught-stealing, a foul popup behind the plate that Kemp made a nice play on, and three ground balls. “We’re not getting a chance to show how good we are defensively,” Jeff Bevino said with a grin.

Foran broke it open sending 10 to the plate in the fourth. The Lions had made it 4-0 on three one-out hits, but Mercy got a second out at third base. Then a comedy of errors began. Well, two errors, a wild pitch, a passed ball and a couple of more hits. All of a sudden it was 8-0, and the Lions could start counting down the outs.

Pop quiz: Mangiamelli was: (a) the freshman who had the only two Mercy hits, one a liner off the tip of the outstretched glove of the third baseman, the other a bunt; (b) the target of a Foran alignment in which the shortstop and second baseman played even with the pitcher while the corner infielders stayed back, which almost produced the routine 6-3 putout on a bunt five feet away from the plate (she beat it out); (c) one of the best names around; (d) all of the above.

Note that may only impress me: Foran and Law moved from the SWC to the SCC for 2004-05, and this is the first time either of them has made a softball final.

So it’s Amity-Foran on Saturday night at 6 at Biondi Field in West Haven. You know Chris Everone will have it in pristine condition. See you there.