To view photos of Thursday’s championship games, please visit the photo gallery by clicking on the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/
PHILADELPHIA – It seemed as though it would be simple. Win one of two games on Thursday, and the SOL American-Continental Conference would capture its first ever Carpenter Cup title.But that one win never happened.
The SOL – despite earning a 4-2 win over Mercer County less than 24 hours earlier – came up short in both of its games against Mercer County at FDR Park in Thursday’s championship round, falling 3-0 in game one and 4-2 in game two.
“I think right now it’s very disappointing, but I think when we look back on it, we’ll see that we showed what we had – maybe not in these two games but in the past couple of games,” Central Bucks West junior Cassie Zanolini said. “It was worth it, of course, but frustrating right now.”
The SOL spent its first four games in the tournament playing solid defense and delivering one clutch hit after another. On Thursday, the SOL could not find its offense in game one, and in game two, the SOL was betrayed by its defense, committing five errors that resulted in three unearned runs.
“As disappointing as it is to lose when you’re in the winner’s bracket and come up short, the opportunity I had to coach some of the best talent in the Suburban One League – you can’t forget that and let a couple of losses dampen the whole overall effort,” said Upper Dublin coach Heather Boyer, the head coach of the SOL. “It’s been a really exciting opportunity to work with these great kids who are terrific athletes and really enjoy the sport.
“They’re an absolute pleasure to coach. They work hard, and that’s all you can ask for. They’re giving up a week of their summer to play some more softball. The outcome would have been better if we were on the winning side, but the overall opportunity is second to none.”
In truth, momentum might have started to swing in Mercer County’s favor when – with two outs in the seventh inning of Wednesday’s game between the two squads - SOL catcher/shortstop Jess Mower was injured. She was not in uniform on Thursday after being diagnosed with a slight concussion and was relegated to cheering from the sidelines and chasing foul balls.“I actually told her during yesterday’s game - she is not only a terrific softball player, but she’s an outstanding student of the game,” Boyer said. “You watch her – she’s always up against the backstop, watching what the catcher does, watching what the pitcher does and looking for all these cues to make her and her teammates better.
“We missed her today, and I know had she been allowed to play, she would have done whatever it takes to get there, but injuries are part of the game.”
Mercer County – fresh off a win over Lehigh Valley in a 9 a.m. game on Thursday - brought momentum into its game against the SOL. Except for a brief stretch early in game two, the SOL never could steal that momentum from Mercer County.
“It’s tough – you need a good play or a good hit to really get you going again,” Zanolini said. “In the second game, we came back a little bit more energized and less flat.”
In game one, Mercer County plated a first-inning run when Courtney Whittaker delivered a two-out RBI single. Since Mercer County was down a player from the required number of 14 (nine starters and five substitutes), it was forced to take a ghost out. That ghost out came in the number five hole – immediately after Whittaker.
“That was on me,” Boyer said. “You’re not used to it, and we realized it in hindsight we should have walked (Whittaker).
“The kids are not thinking of it. They’re not thinking, ‘Oh, I can just wait because I have an out coming.’ That was my mistake. They were going to use their ghost player in the nine spot, and we were focusing on the hitter. It’s hard playing with the ghost out when you’re not used to it.”
The first inning aside, the SOL never got its bats going, managing just three hits – singles by Zanolini, Ally Horvath and Gina Pellechio – off a duo of Mercer County hurlers.
“It doesn’t matter if it was 1-0 or 3-0 – we didn’t score any runs,” Boyer said.
It looked like things might be going the SOL’s way when its players staged a two-out rally in the second inning of game two – this after collecting a pair of hits in the first inning.
Jenn Halcovage got things started with a bloop single to left, and she raced home when Stephanie DiNolfi ripped a triple to deep left. Zanolini’s infield single plated DiNolfi, and the SOL led 2-0, but not for long.
Mercer County pushed across a pair of unearned runs in the third inning to knot the score and went on top 3-2 after scoring a single run in the fourth. In the bottom of the fifth, Mercer County benefitted from a pair of errors to add an unearned run.The SOL put its leadoff batter on board in the sixth, but a sacrifice bunt turned into a rally-killing double play when the base runner was thrown out trying to advance to third on the bunt.
“The mistakes we made today were aggressive – the girls were trying to make something happen,” Boyer said. “I can’t question their effort.”
Another miracle comeback appeared to be within the SOL’s grasp when Allie Chase and Michelle Holweger drew back-to-back walks to open the seventh. Chase raced home on Katie Ziegler’s one-out single to right, but that’s where the rally ended.
“There were some kids this year that had outstanding tournaments,” Boyer said. “Today we had so many bats go cold, and a couple of things did not bounce our way, which is frustrating, but the overall moral of the story is these girls came down and represented their conferences extraordinarily well.
“They were 4-2 in an extremely competitive tournament and played some really great softball.”
The players could not hide their disappointment as they accepted their second place awards, but it wasn’t long before they began putting things into perspective.
“It was a lot of fun,” Zanolini said. “Even though right now we’re disappointed – it was a good experience to meet everyone. We had great coaches and made new friends. It was a lot of fun.”
“I actually had a lot of fun,” DiNolfi added. “I experienced it last year, but this year it seemed as though the team was a lot closer.
“We felt as though we were going to win, but simple fundamental plays – we couldn’t get down. It still was a lot of fun.”
NOTES: North Penn coach Rick Torresani, PW coach Dana Moyer and Norristown coach Jon Kandrick rounded out the coaching crew for the SOL American-Continental squad…Zanolini had three hits on the day to lead the SOL while Ziegler and Halcovage each had a pair of hits. DiNolfi had the only extra-base hit on the day – a triple.
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