Quakertown advanced to the program’s first District 1 6A title game with a win Tuesday. Council Rock South earned the program’s first ever trip to the PIAA 6A State Tournament with a win over CB West. Quakertown/Downingtown East photos courtesy of Kim Supko. Check back for a gallery of photos: https://solsports.zenfolio.com/f860927651 (Helen Woloshyn photo courtesy of Kristen Waskie/CRS Softball)
District 1 6A semifinals
#3 QUAKERTOWN 3, #7 DOWNINGTOWN EAST 1
The line drive off Lilly Waterer’s bat had barely settled in the glove of leaping shortstop Ava Beal when pitcher Abbey Wagner, jumping for joy, tossed her mask aside and disappeared in a mob of jubilant teammates.
The Panthers – thanks in no small part to Wagner’s masterpiece – had just made history, defeating the Cougars in Tuesday’s district semifinal game and advancing to the District 1 6A title game for the first time in program history.
It’s not something Wagner says she ever gave a whole lot of thought.
“I just focus on one game at a time, and when the situation came – okay, districts, let’s work toward that,’” Wagner said. “In reality, I literally just focus on one game at a time, one pitch at a time, one out at a time.
“It’s my last year, so I’m putting my all to win it. This is the first time we’ve been here. I’m really happy about this today.”
Wagner allowed just two hits – both to cleanup batter Jade Jenkins. She faced just 24 batters and threw only 66 pitches – 53 for strikes. She struck out five and did not walk a batter in a contest that was over in 75 minutes.
“She’s a player,” coach Rich Scott said of Wagner. “She’s got a big heart. She’s not very tall, she’s not big at all, but she’s got a big heart, a very determined kid. She’s very, very talented, and she’ gives 100 percent effort all the time. You can’t ask for more than that.”
The key, according to the senior pitcher, is simple.
“Just throwing strikes,” Wagner said. “Staying on the lines – not giving them too good of pitches, don’t want to risk anything. That was my goal today.”
The Panthers managed just four hits off Downingtown East senior Rachael Schumann, who had lost just twice all season with both of those losses coming at the hands of top-seeded Downingtown West. The Seton Hall signee and first team all-state pitcher struck out seven and walked two.
The Cougars took a 1-0 lead with one swing of Jenkins’ bat to lead off the second inning as the senior slugger ripped a solo home run to center field.
“After that happens, I have to shake it off,” Wagner said. “If I let that affect me, it will affect every pitch I throw, and it will cause my team to maybe collapse. I just focus on staying strong. I can’t let that affect me.”
The Panthers answered with three runs in the bottom of the inning. Cadence Lewis led off with a walk, and Ellie Hilton singled. One out later, Lewis scored on Kira Jefferson’s successfully executed squeeze bunt, evening the score 1-1. With two outs, Wagner stepped to the plate and capped a tough
seven-pitch at-bat by roping a two-run double to right field.
“That was huge,” Scott said. “Those two runs gave us the cushion, enough for us to play our game.”
Wagner retired 12 in a row after the Cougars had a one-out base runner in the third inning. That streak was broken in the seventh inning when Jenkins lined a one-out double to right field. The next batter was retired on a groundout to shortstop, and with Jenkins on third, Waterer got all of a 1-1 pitch, lining out to Beal for the game’s final out.
“It scared me but then I saw Ava jump for it, and I was like, ‘Never mind, I can chill,’” Wagner said of the game’s final out. “It kind of worried me a little bit, but she got it, so it’s all good. I almost cried again. It’s just exciting.”
“It was a very exciting game,” Scott said. “That’s a good team. They have a very good pitcher. To battle them to a 3-1 game is awesome.
“I’m really happy for the players. The players deserve this. The seniors played four years, and this is a great group of kids, a very good group of kids.”
Quakertown (22-1, 15-1 SOL) will face top-seeded Downingtown West in Thursday’s District 1 6A title game at Spring-Ford.
“It doesn’t feel real to me,” Beal said. “I don’t know. It’s just so exciting. We’ve never had this opportunity. It’s just an amazing experience to be going there. (No matter) the outcome, either good or bad, it’s just an amazing opportunity to have this chance to go to the district final.”
Downingtown East 010 000 0 1-2-0
Quakertown 030 000 x 3-4-2
#1 DOWNINGTOWN WEST 3, #4 NORTH PENN 1
In another district semifinal that lived up to its billing, the top-seeded Whippets – behind the strong arm of Addy Carter – defeated the Knights, snapping their 12-game winning streak.
“She’s a good pitcher,” North Penn coach Rick Torresani said of Carter. “We went in with a game plan, and we stuck to it most of the game. She throws a riser, and we wanted to lay off it.
“In the first inning, we scored a run, and they came back and scored two on a couple of hits and a walk, but we got girls on. Numerous times we could have scored, but we just couldn’t get the timely hit. In a playoff game – especially a semifinal of districts, if you don’t get the timely hitting when you have two good pitchers going at each other, its’s gonna cost you, and that’s what happened with us today.”
In the top of the first, Casey Sokol drew a two-out walk and stole second. She scored when Sophia Orth singled.
The Whippets answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning, thanks to a two-run single by Ava Kaczmarski. In the bottom of the third, the Whippets added another run when Kaczmarski collected her second hit of the game – an RBI single to left field.
Orth broke a string of eight in a row retired by Carter with a one-out double in the fourth inning.
The Knights’ best chance to cut into the Whippets’ lead came in the top of the sixth when Liv Stevens and Sokol opened the inning with back-to-back singles. Carter retired the next two batters on a fly out to right and a pop out to second before Tallie Smink drew a two-out walk to load the bases. Carter slammed the door on that threat with a pop out to third base.
“We left seven or eight girls on base, and most of them with less than two outs,” Torresani said. “It was a good game – two good pitchers and two good teams going at it, and we just were on the other end of this one.
“When we had our chances, we just didn’t get the timely hit. The best part about it is – it doesn’t mean we’re done. Anything’s possible.”
North Penn (20-3, 14-2 SOL) will host #7 Downingtown East in Thursday’s third place game.
North Penn 100 000 0 1-6-0
Downingtown West 201 000 x 3-6-0
#2 COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH 11, #11 CENTRAL BUCKS WEST 1 (6 innings)
The Golden Hawks are back.
Not that the district’s second-seeded team was ever gone, but they suffered through an uncharacteristic stretch that saw them allow 30 runs in three games, but in Tuesday’s must-win for the district’s final state berth, the Golden Hawks returned to the form that made them such a formidable opponent this season.
“Our girls will not give up – they had a bad inning where they gave up seven runs to Pennsbury, but they just came right back,” Rock South coach Scott Molle said of his team’s 13-9 win over the Falcons in a district second round game. “They don’t give up. We were so good in the field this year, and then we had a couple of bad games, and it was so unlike us. Today we were so good.”
Making the Golden Hawks’ performance even more impressive was the fact that it came on a day when they suffered a major setback before they ever stepped onto the field.
“I got a call from my third baseman (senior Avery Tumolo) this morning because she’s in the emergency room with really bad abdominal pain,” Molle said. “A little bit later, she said – ‘It feels a little bit better – they gave me meds. I’m going to school’ because you have to be at school by a certain time to be able to play. I said I’ll call the school and let them know you’re coming.
“I got a text 20 minutes later. The CT scan results came back, and she had to get emergency surgery for her appendix. We were without our starter – she’s a senior, one of our leaders, a cheerleader who gets the girls all hyped up, and we were without that today. We had her on FaceTime before the game a little bit. We were going to have her on the whole game, but they took her in for surgery. It was heartbreaking to have that happen. It was tough to see them all walking up to the field without
Avery, but they were determined. They used it as fuel. They dug deep for her.”
Grace Stepp, for one, never doubted her team.
“We try to leave the (bad) inning behind because recently we have been having one or two bad innings that cost us the game,” the Golden Hawks’ senior captain said. “Honestly, once we’re losing in a game, I gain more confidence in us. We come together, and we always dig deep and find it. I know we’re going to come together, and we are going to hold each other up and hold each other accountable and pull through.”
Stepp certainly did her part to make sure her team would bounce back after an 11-6 loss to Downingtown East in Friday’s district quarterfinal, contributing a pair of hits – including a home run – and three RBIs. Helen Woloshyn reached base four straight times, drove in a pair of runs and stole five bases, and Lexi Waring was on top of her game, allowing four hits and no earned runs while striking out six.
And with their backs firmly against the wall, the Golden Hawks responded in a big way. So, what exactly makes it work?
“I don’t even know,” Stepp said. “I don’t know if it’s because we love playing with each other, and we’ve never done this – let’s keep going, and we always find a way.
“Even today, we had one of our starters out, and we find a way to do it. We all pull together, we’re all good enough, and we all know how to play with each other.”
The Bucks got on the scoreboard with a run in the second inning when Molly Gibson and Taylor Hooven led off the inning with back-to-back doubles. Waring retired the next three batters she faced and did not allow a hit the rest of the way, mowing down 12 in a row to close out the abbreviated contest that came to an end in the sixth inning.
The Golden Hawks, meanwhile, scored all the runs Waring would need in the bottom of the third. Woloshyn and Gabby Bloom hit back-to-back one-out singles, and after Woloshyn scored on a steal of home, Stepp hit a two-run home run to center field, giving the Hawks a 3-1 lead.
Rock South added three more runs in the fourth inning, two in the fifth and brought an end to the game with three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning.
The win put this year’s squad in the program’s record books as the first team in school history to earn a state berth.
“Nobody has even done it, and it means a lot,” Stepp said. “It’s really exciting, and it’s so nice to see how over the
years we’ve worked up to this spot.
“I’ve been waiting so long to experience a team that loves each other this much and can play for each other. Today we really saw that – playing for each other, getting to the next spot, making sure we made it to states, so one of our teammates who’s sick can experience it. Playing for each other all the time, picking each other up – it’s just amazing to be on a team that loves each other and enjoys the game and wants to go farther for each other.”
The Golden Hawks pounded out 12 hits, this without Tumolo in the lineup.
“Her hitting has been tremendous the first two games of the playoffs,” Molle said of his third baseman. “We had a freshman step up and have a good game. They amaze me what they can do, how they dug down deep.
“My second baseman (Kelly Delise) was diagnosed with bronchitis right before the game. She was at Urgent Care, but she played the game. She had a great play in the field, put a squeeze play down. I’m just so happy for her.”
Turning in multi-hit games for the Golden Hawks were Woloshyn (2-for-4, 2 RBIs, 5 SB, 3R), Stepp (2-for-4, 2B, HR, 3 RBIs, 2R) and Julia Scannapieco (2-for-4, 2B, RBI).
“Today, they just were on another level again, pounding the ball,” Molle said. “Lexi was
tremendous on the mound – she didn’t allow an earned run. Helen Woloshyn had five stolen bases. She was 2-for-4, but she got on two other times they had throwing errors. She had a diving catch again, and she threw a girl out at home. She had a day.
“Grace was huge. She had three RBIs, and two-run home run and a double. She was struggling a bit at the plate the last few games, but she works so hard to get back to where she wanted to be. She’s the leader of the team, and we go how Grace goes, and she just put it all out on the line.”
Council Rock South (19-3, 13-2 SOL) will host #12 Boyertown in Thursday’s fifth place game and then it’s on to the state tournament.
“A new coaching staff – we came in in February, and we set goals,” Molle said. “We wanted to win the division, we set a goal that we needed to get into states, and both of those were first times for Council Rock South. South has never done it before. The girls are super focused, worked hard, and they had those two goals in mind, and they got it. This is huge, so big.”
Central Bucks West 010 000 1-4-3
Council Rock South 003 323 11-12-1
About the Author
