Alexa Larkin was off to a dazzling start.
Her Latrobe squad had plated an unearned run in the bottom of the first inning, staking the junior mound ace to a 1-0 lead over Pennsbury in Monday’s PIAA Class AAAA semifinal game at Shippensburg University. That lead looked huge when Larkin – already committed to the University of Pittsburgh and fresh off a 16-strikeout effort in the state quarterfinals – struck out the first five batters she faced.
But everything changed when Mackenzie Obert stepped to the plate in the second inning.
“By watching the previous batters, I recognized that she was throwing a lot of outside pitches, and I just had to go with the pitch and take it to right field,” Obert said after the Falcons’ 7-4 win over Latrobe. “She was a great pitcher, but we got our team confidence, and we knew we could get on her eventually.”
After fighting off several two-strike pitches, Obert hit a single to right field.
“Mackenzie had a real good at-bat and went with the pitch,” coach Frank McSherry said. “She (Larkin) was just screwballing us to death on the outside corner of the plate.
“She’s a lefthander, so her screwball was moving away from our righthanded hitters. We had to make some adjustments.”
Savanna Grantham followed Obert, and in another tough at-bat, the senior rightfielder roped a triple to right field that plated Obert and knotted the score 1-1.
“When we came in to hit after we gave them a run, we all told Val, ‘We’ll get that run back for you, and we’ll get you some cushion runs so you can feel comfortable on the mound,’” Obert sad.
In the fourth inning, Kelsi Buda, Christina Bascara and Obert (RBI) delivered consecutive singles to put Pennsbury on top 2-1.
That score held until the top of the sixth when the Falcons – with two outs - went to their small game and created all kinds of havoc for Larkin and her teammates. The fun began when Larkin threw the ball away on Michelle George’s slap bunt.
That scenario was replayed on a D’Anna Devine slap.
“Both of those weren’t real easy,” McSherry said. “She had to go towards third base and then turn and throw, and she threw both away.”
Those throwing errors were apparently contagious, and this time – on a Jess Greenewald bunt – the third baseman had a throwing error. Suzanne Swanicke followed with an RBI single, but another throwing error by Larkin allowed Bunda to reach first.
By the time the inning was over, the Falcons – who led 6-1 - had tacked on four runs with the benefit of just one hit.
Latrobe got one of those back with a run in the bottom of the inning, but the Falcons scored a single run in the top of the seventh when Obert, who singled, scored on a two-out single by George to put the Falcons on top 7-2.
Things got interesting in the bottom of the inning when Latrobe benefitted from four hits and a walk to push two more runs across. The game ended with George – who moved from left to right field after Grantham re-aggravated her knee injury– snagging a line drive on one hop and firing to first for the final out.
Val Buehler notched the win on the mound. The sophomore hurler allowed just one hit through five innings, and that came in the first. Latrobe collected five of its six hits in the final two innings.
“Latrobe battled,” said McSherry, whose team defeated Latrobe 3-2 to capture the state title in 2007. “You expect that. With just a couple of teams left in the state, they’re all going to battle you. Nobody’s laying down.”
Bunda had a pair of hits while Obert led the Falcons with a 3-for-4 performance at the plate.
“She should have been 4-for-4,” McSherry said of Obert. “She beat out an infield hit, but the umpire called her out.
“She had a great day and jumpstarted us after the first five kids struck out.”
Ask Obert the key to the Falcons’ remarkable run to the state title game, and the sophomore shortstop points to the team’s camaraderie.
“We all started bonding together the first few weeks of practice, and we bonded so much over the past few weeks,” she said. “Some of us did play with each other outside of school, and that could be part of the bonding process. This is the closest softball team I have ever been with.”
As a result of the win, the Falcons improved to 23-3 on the season.
“We have been pretty resilient,” McSherry said. “After that ugly loss to Council Rock North, they came back with a vengeance, and after we got beat by Hatboro the way we got beat and certainly contributed to beating ourselves – that might have been the worst game we played, but since then we have played really, really well
“They have that bounce-back ability, and what we talked about after the game today was how many adjustments the kids have made throughout the games. We did it against Hatboro when their pitcher was dominating us. Today the kid strikes out five in a row, but we made some adjustments and put the ball in play. Our kids don’t stand pat. When they see something that’s not going their way, they seem to say, ‘Okay, let’s try this.’
“We made adjustments when we had to today. It should set up a pretty good game on Friday.”
Friday’s game will be a rematch of the District One Class AAAA title game pitting the Falcons against Hatboro-Horsham. The Hatters needed eight innings to eke out an 8-5 win in the district title game.
“We can’t wait,” Obert said. “We were freaking out after the game today.
“We heard Hatboro won the minute we got on the bus, and we were all excited. We lost to them before, and they’re a great team, but I think we can do it. I’m just so glad we get another shot.”
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