WPIAL Softball Recaps From Tuesday, May 24th

By: Bruce Markey
Tuesday, May 24, 2016 | 11:52 PM

13 was the lucky number for games played on Monday in Round Two of the district softball postseason, while three games were not so fortunate and had to be bumped back 24 hours to Tuesday. For the three teams that won and advanced in those games, the wait was worth it, but the turnaround is quick as they have 24 hours to prep for the Final Four. Here are the three summaries from the WPIAL Quarterfinals Softball games played at Hampton Township Park on Tuesday.

A special thanks to Jake Holmes, Josh Rowntree and Kyle Dawson for their help on these recaps.

WPIAL CLASS AAAA Quarterfinals:

Latrobe Wildcats 5 – Shaler Titans 4 
No. 7 Latrobe (16-5) jumped out to an early lead and received clutch pitching, defeating No. 2 Shaler 5-4 on Tuesday at Hampton Township Park. With the win, the Wildcats advance to the WPIAL AAAA Semifinals, where they will meet No. 3 Baldwin on Wednesday at North Allegheny High School. Meredith Carr pitched a complete game for Latrobe, allowing just two earned runs on nine scattered hits, while striking out seven and walking just two. Carr, a junior righty, forced Shaler (19-2) to leave 11 runners on base, including eight in scoring position. Latrobe knocked around Shaler pitcher Bri Dobson early, starting the game with a trio of singles, including a run scoring base hit by Karley Kovatch that gave the Wildcats a 1-0 lead in the 1st inning. Latrobe would grow the lead to 4-0 on a bases-clearing double by Morgan Schweizer. But the Titans would respond in the bottom half of the opening frame, plating three runs thanks, in part, to two errors by Kovatch at short stop. Their third run was controversial and came after a collision on a fielder’s choice put-out at second base in which Kovatch stepped on the second base bag and was run into by Shaler’s Lyndsey Lakatos, who would later leave with an injury from the play. With both players on the ground, a run would score from third base. Latrobe would protest, but to no avail, as the score was pushed to 4-3. The Wildcats would score the eventual winning run in the 3rd inning on another bizarre play. Nicole Dunlap would fly out to the short stop, who would throw back to the first base bag to turn a double play on Schweizer, who had mistakenly run to second base on the flyout. But the throw by Shaler’s Lauren Miller would be off line, allowing Carr to score from third base, resulting in a 5-3 Latrobe lead. Shaler would make things interesting in the 6th inning after a one-out triple by Kayla Seidl and double by Dobson brought the game to 5-4. But Carr would strike out the next two batters and strand another runner in the 7th, preserving the win. Mikayla Munchinski had three hits for Latrobe, while Kovatch added a pair and Schweizer contributed three RBI. Bri Dobson, who entered the contest at 17-1 with a 0.86 ERA in the circle, was tagged with the loss, allowing four earned runs on nine hits, while striking out two and walking three. Dobson and Taylor Jones had multiple hits for Shaler. This was the ninth meeting in the WPIAL Playoffs for Shaler and Latrobe since 2006. The Wildcats now own a 5-4 edge in those meetings and head to the semifinals for the second time in three seasons.

WPIAL CLASS AA Quarterfinals:

Steel Valley Ironmen 12 – Avonworth Antelopes 3 
Steel Valley and Avonworth are two teams that have a knack for scoring runs in bunches. However on this Tuesday afternoon, only one team racked up the runs, that being the twelfth seeded Steel Valley Ironmen as the eliminated the Avonworth Antelopes 12-3.
Steel Valley posted 10 runs in the opening frame after a base clearing double by Maddie Cotter made the score 3-0. After five consecutive singles, five additional runs came across for the Ironmen. A Morgan Ferrah double and Krista Bayus single accounted for an RBI each making the score 10-0 after one. In the second, Milan Harris delivered an RBI single that brought across the 11th run of the contest for Steel Valley in only the second inning of play. The offensive juggernaut in Avonworth rallied in the third. A leadoff double by Kimmi D’Ottavio sparked the Antelopes. Pat Aliskowitz singled which brought up Sarah Helfrich who drove in two runs on a two RBI single. Savannah Stanley later delivered a two out RBI single to make the deficit eight runs. The game settled down from there. Krista Bayus delivered her second RBI of the game in the seventh to finish the scoring at 12-3. Maddie Cotter went the distance for Steel Valley as she got the win. She racked up six strike outs but suffered three earned runs. Sarah Helfrich went six and a third in relief, striking out two and giving two runs on six hits. Kimmi D’Ottavio suffered the loss. Steel Valley will meet Elwood City in the semifinals with a trip to the championship game on the line.

South Park Eagles 7 – Freeport Yellow Jackets 0 
Following a 13-0, six inning win in the opening round of the Class AA softball playoffs over the #14 seed Southside Beaver, the No. 3 seed South Park Eagles weren’t about to falter. After two innings, Tuesday’s game in the quarterfinals between the Eagles and No. 11 Yellow Jackets of Freeport was a quiet and close 2-0, after South Park scratched across a run in both innings. They scored an unearned run in the first and a run in the first two batters of the second inning using a lead off triple and then a base it to take a 2-0 lead to the third. While Justine Dean continued her dominance of the Yellow Jackets in the circle, South Park added on offensively, scoring two in each of the third and fourth innings to make it 6-0, before adding a seventh run in the sixth, en route to a 7-0 quarterfinal win over Freeport. Dean struck out nine on the mound for the Eagles, walked six and surrendered just two hits, both to Freeport leadoff hitter, Ashleigh Schmidt in the shutout performance. Freeport ends its season after beating the No. 6 seed in AA, McGuffey in the first round, with the 7-0 loss, dropping to 13-5 overall, while South Park is now 13-3 and cruising to the semifinals where they will meet No. 7 Laurel on Wednesday at a site and time to be determined. The game can be heard on the exclusive home for the WPIAL softball playoffs, right here on the MSA Sports Network.