North Penn advanced to Thursday’s District One AAAA title game where the Maidens will face Bishop Shanahan. To view photos of the North Penn/CB South game, please visit the Photo Gallery.
The North Penn Maidens are the Cinderella story of this year’s District One AAAA Tournament. Ignoring their status as the tournament’s 10th seed, the Maidens have taken down every team in their path, most recently upsetting sixth-seeded Central Bucks South 4-3 in Tuesday’s all-SOL semifinal.
Bishop Shanahan also is a surprise semifinalist, although it’s hard to call a team a surprise when it boasts the kind of talent senior Kate Poppe brings to the mound. The Villanova-bound senior doesn’t need a whole lot of run support, but the Eagles plated three runs in the second inning of Tuesday’s semifinal game against Pennsbury. That was more than enough for Poppe as the Eagles rolled to a 4-0 win and a date with North Penn in Thursday’s 4 p.m. title game at Plymouth Whitemarsh.
Hatboro-Horsham kept its season alive with a 13-0 rout of Methacton in an abbreviated five-inning playback game. Central Bucks East wasn’t as fortunate. The Patriots fell to third-seeded Spring-Ford 4-3.
#10 NORTH PENN 4, #6 CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 3
The dream lives on for the North Penn Maidens, and the team few would have given a chance to play for a district title will be doing just that, thanks to Tuesday’s upset win over league rival CB South.
“It was unbelievable,” sophomore Erin Maher said. “We had nothing to lose going into it. Nobody was saying anything about North Penn. It was all CB South.
“This was great, especially because we lost to them twice this season. It’s hard to beat a team three or four times. It was really exciting.”
The tone for this win was set early, very early when they Maidens plated a pair of first-inning runs. Jess Mower, the lone senior in the lineup, got things started with a single, and Maher – who was moved to the number two spot in the lineup late in the season – laid down a bunt single.
“Right now it’s working out,” Maher said. “Jess started out at leadoff and then moved down for some power but then moved back up.
“She’s doing such a great job of getting on base, and my job is to bunt her over. I’ve always done that. Ever since I was little, I was always a good bunter. I don’t mind it. Whatever works for the team works for me.”
It hardly seems like a coincidence that the Maidens have been on a roll since coach Rick Torresani tinkered with his lineup.
“When I was batting fifth, I was doing a lot of hitting because I was driving runs in,” Maher said. “I started struggling with my hitting, and he thought it would be a good idea to move me up, and it’s working so far.”
A costly error on Alexa Gable’s sacrifice bunt sent the first Maidens’ run across the plate, and Vicky Tumasz’s RBI single spotted the Maidens a quick 2-0 lead.
“That was huge,” Maher said of getting on top early. “One thing we’ve struggled with is timely hitting, and to get on the board first today kind of gave us momentum.
“It shifted a few times in the game, but we held it. We never gave that momentum up.”
Torresani echoed similar sentiments.
“The last time we played them it went 11 innings, and it was 0-0 going into the tiebreaker,” the Maidens’ coach said of a game South won 3-1. “To jump out on a very good pitcher (Haileigh Stocks) that way and get two runs, we couldn’t ask for anything more.
“From there on in, we had the lead and we never gave it up, and that was critical.”
The Titans cut the Maidens’ lead in half with a run in the second, but the Maidens got that run back in the fourth when Tumasz, who led off the inning with a triple, scored on Mower’s sacrifice fly.
The Titans scored a single run in the fifth to make it a 3-2 game, but again, the Maidens responded. This time Mower delivered an RBI single to put the Maidens on top 4-2. The Titans trimmed that lead to 4-3 with a run in the top of the sixth and put the tying run on board in the seventh, but freshman hurler Jackie Bilotti slammed the door on every Titan comeback attempt.
“She’s unbelievable,” Torresani said of Bilotti, who allowed seven hits. “If she throws 55 (MPH), I’d be surprised, but her ball movement and the way she locates the ball – she pitches where she wants the kid to hit the ball.
“They got wood on the ball and hit some line drives, but Erin Maher made two really good catches in center field. They were huge plays. We went into the game saying we didn’t want to give up extra base hits, and Jackie did it. They had seven singles.”
The Maidens – led by the two-hit efforts of Tumasz and Mower – also collected seven hits off Stocks.
“They’re a very good team,” Tumasz said. “Like everyone says – it’s hard to beat a team three times.
“They knew us and we knew them. We knew what they liked, and they knew what we liked. We just had to play to our capabilities. We were all pumped for the game, and we deserved that win.”
Morgan Decker led the Titans with a 2-for-3 day at the plate.
While the Titans will face Pennsbury in a third place game on Thursday at Wissahickon (4 p.m.), the Maidens will take on Bishop Shanahan in the title game at Plymouth Whitemarsh at 4 p.m.
“We are in it to win it,” Tumasz said. “We had some problems at the beginning of the year. We didn’t know what was expected, and no one had faith in us.
“We worked hard every day in practice, and we put ourselves in the spot we needed to be in and proved everyone wrong.”
#5 BISHOP SHANAHAN 4, #1 PENNSBURY 0
Bishop Shanahan put to rest any thoughts of an all-SOL district final with its strong showing against Pennsbury in the other district semifinal.
The top-seeded Falcons uncharacteristically committed a pair of costly errors in the second inning that led to three unearned Shanahan runs. Spotting any team an early lead is never a good idea. Giving Shanahan ace Kate Poppe a 3-0 lead is fatal. At least it was on Tuesday for the Falcons, who managed just a one-out infield single by Suzanne Swanicke in the seventh off of Poppe, who fanned 10.
“We played our most undisciplined game so far this year and maybe in recent memory for me,” coach Frank McSherry said. “We were very undisciplined.
“But I don’t want to take anything away from their team. They came up with some clutch hits, and their pitcher was really tough.”
Not that Poppe needed any insurance, but the Eagles tacked on a single run in the fourth inning.
“You don’t mind losing, but you mind losing ugly, and we lost ugly,” McSherry said. “We committed errors in the field, and we committed mental errors at the plate. You can’t do that against a good team and a good pitcher, and she’s better than good. She’s a great pitcher.
“We knew there was only one way for us to beat her, and that would be to be disciplined, and we were not even close to that. We struck out 10 times, and every one was over our heads. We just weren’t disciplined like we should have been.”
The Falcons (20-3) will face Central Bucks South in Thursday’s third place game at Wissahickon at 4 p.m.
“We told them, ‘Things like this test your mettle. Make sure you come to practice tomorrow knowing what mettle means. Look it up if you don’t know,’” McSherry said.
#4 HATBORO-HORSHAM 13, #9 METHACTON (Five innings)
If it seems as though the defending district and state champions had a little point to prove after Friday’s 1-0 loss to Bishop Shanahan, they certainly played as though they did, scoring early and often on their way to a rout of the Warriors in a playback game.
“They do not want to lose,” coach Joe DiFilippo said. “My seniors today – they do not want to lose.”
The Hatters served early notice that they meant business. Val Sadowl put the Hatters on the board in the first inning with a double that plated Maggie Shaffer. Daria Edwards followed with an RBI single, and the Hatters’ third run crossed the plate on a fielder’s choice.
“We practiced on Memorial Day,” DiFilippo said. “At nine o’clock in the morning, we were out there hitting, and we were out there for two and a half hours. You could tell then that they did not want their season to end.”
The Hatters added two runs in the second and blew the game wide open with a seven-run third inning that included a two-run home run by Sadowl and a solo blast by Maria Spinosa. They closed out the scoring with one run in the fourth for the 13-0 final.
Sadowl finished the day 2-for-4 with a double, home run and three RBIs. Chrissy James was 2-for-4 with a double. Nicole D’Andrea was 2-for-3 with two RBIs. All told, the Hatters pounded out 14 hits.
“Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come,” DiFilippo said.
Shaffer, who also had a pair of RBIs, notched the win on the mound, allowing just two hits, striking out three and walking two.
The Hatters will face Spring-Ford in a battle for the fifth and final spot in the state tournament. The Rams brought an end to Central Bucks East’s season with a 4-3 come-from-behind win. Thursday’s playback game will be played at North Penn High School at 4 p.m.
#3 SPRING-FORD 4, CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 3
An RBI single by Spring-Ford’s Bri Kofer in the bottom of the sixth put the Rams on top 4-3 and capped a 4-0 Ram tear that included a pair of runs in both the fifth and sixth innings to erase a 3-0 Patriot lead. The Patriots put a pair of runners on board in the seventh but could not push a run across. They close out their season with a 12-11 record while the Rams live to see another day and will face Hatboro-Horsham in a winner-take-all playback game at North Penn High School on Thursday at 4 p.m.
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