Mt. Pleasant softball survives scare in PIAA Class 4A 1st round

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, June 4, 2018 | 9:03 PM

Defending PIAA Class 4A softball champion Mt. Pleasant came about as close to losing a game as possible in the bottom of the seventh inning Monday.

A Slippery Rock runner crossed home plate with the apparent winning run while the Vikings defense attempted a force play at second. But when the other Rockets runner overslid second and was called out, the game went to extra innings.

Mt. Pleasant finally pushed across two runs in the 11th inning and survived, 4-2, against the District 10 champions at Allegheny College's Robertson Athletics Complex.

The Vikings (18-1) will play rival Belle Vernon in the PIAA quarterfinals Thursday at a time and site to be determined. The Leopards handed Mt. Pleasant its only loss of the season in the WPIAL semifinals.

Slippery Rock (17-5) saw its 17-game winning streak — and its season — come to an end.

With the score tied at 1 entering the last of the seventh, Ayslyn Duffy singled and Hannah Wilson walked against Vikings starter Meadow Uncapher.

Uncapher struck out the next two batters before Cheyenne Hindman hit a grounder up the middle. Mt. Pleasant shortstop Christiana Czegan underhanded it to second baseman Alyssa Keslar too late. But Keslar kept the tag on as Wilson went past the base.

Wilson was called out just as the Slippery Rock bench was ready to erupt with a PIAA victory.

“That was a hard play for anybody just to keep it in the infield,” Vikings coach Lauren Armanious said. “It was a heads-up play just to keep us from losing.”

“We stayed in it after that,” Rockets coach Dan Hindman said. “I was very pleased with that, where it was emotional and could have been the difference in the game.”

The score remained tied 1-1 after nine innings when the international tiebreaker rule was employed, with the player who made the last out the previous inning standing at second base to start the new inning.

Both teams exchanged runs in the 10th before Chloe Paulich started the 11th on second and Haylie Brunson, who homered in the fourth, was intentionally walked for the second time.

Mary Smithnosky bunted both runners up and Poulich scored on an error at first base.

Brunson scored on Ava Gnibus' grounder to short.

Winning pitcher Carolyn Alincic retired the side in the 11th to secure the victory.

Brunson prevented at least a run with a fine running catch on Macy McCall's drive to right field.

“I was just trying to run the ball down and help out my team,” Brunson said. “With the home run, I really wanted to just see a good pitch and hit the ball hard.”

Alincic relieved Uncapher in the eighth and struck out seven Rockets over the final four innings.

The plan was to eventually bring in Alincic at some point.

“We wanted to see how Meadow did, and I think she did a very good job,” Armanious said.

“I thought after seven we needed to switch. We would have made that switch whenever we thought it was necessary.”

Slippery Rock pitcher Cheyenne Hindman, a last-minute insertion in the circle, struck out 10 and induced nine Mt. Pleasant pop ups and fly outs.

“For me, it was about trying to keep the batting lineup as strong as I could,” coach Hindman said. “We did it in case we had to change pitchers or something of that nature.”

Brunson homered to tie the game in the fourth after Slippery Rock had taken the early lead when Brynn Horner tripled and scored on Duffy's single.

George Guido is a freelance writer.

Tags: Mt. Pleasant