Jun 2, 2013 4 min read

Michele Moeller let her softball team know that any travel ball her girls wanted to play the weekend before the WPIAL Class AAAA final was OK with her.

The more swings the better, the Canon-McMillan coach figured.

Plus, Moeller had been burned a couple years ago while trying to keep her players singularly focused only on their high school season.

Right fielder Abby McCartney didn’t mind. The extra swings helped her bust out of a postseason funk, an 0-for-8 skid in the quarterfinals, semifinals and her first-at-bat of Thursday’s 5-2 win over North Allegheny.

But against the Tigers, McCartney dropped a single into center field in the fourth inning and crushed a triple to right center in the sixth, her powerful, left-handed swing back in full force.

“She got some more live reps in (last) weekend,” Moeller said. “If any of my kids wanted to play tournament ball, I was OK with it. Years ago that came back and bit us. When we didn’t permit them to do that, everybody else was playing, and it hurt us at the plate.

“She got some more at-bats, and it definitely helped her out.”

McCartney credited her single – not exactly a rocket, but it counted just the same – with restoring confidence. Her third at-bat of the game felt much more natural.

“That’s exactly what I needed to relieve some stress,” said McCartney, who led the Big Macs in batting average (.507), slugging percentage (.934) and doubles (12) as a freshman last spring. “I felt better about myself. I felt more confident.”

Besides hitting, McCartney also has been crucial for Canon-McMillan (21-1) in the field. When catcher Giorgiana Zeremenko dealt with a shoulder injury earlier in the year, McCartney hopped behind the plate, often picking up signals from Zeremenko on the bench.

She had three putouts while patrolling right field against the Tigers, none more important than when she came sprinting forward, dove and nearly collided with second baseman Ally Bellaire before catching a ball to end a bases-loaded threat in the sixth.

“They kept their heads about them, got the outs they needed to get,” Moeller said of her team’s defense against North Allegheny. “Abby making a great catch out there … she made several great catches out there for us tonight.”

At the plate, McCartney is batting .538 with a .938 slugging percentage. She has seven doubles, five triples, three home runs and 27 RBI.

McCartney’s resurgence has come just in time, too, as Canon-McMillan opens the PIAA Class AAAA playoffs at 4 p.m. today against Hempfield at North Allegheny.

In other games involving local softball teams, Burgettstown faces Claysburg Kimmel (2:30 p.m.) and Chartiers-Houston plays Phillipsburg-Osceola (7 p.m.), both at Penn State University, while Carmichaels plays Saegertown at Penn State-Behrend (1 p.m.). In Class A baseball, California faces Elk County Catholic at 4 p.m. at Brookville High School.

The history between Canon-McMillan and Hempfield is lengthy: Besides meeting in last year’s WPIAL final, which the Big Macs won, 4-1, Hempfield is the only team to beat Canon-Mac this season.

Oh, and pitcher Alayna Astuto tossed a perfect game to beat the Spartans in the WPIAL semifinals.

“Positives and negatives,” McCartney said of playing Hempfield. “I kind of wish we had a different team because then they don’t know what we have. But I still think we can pull it out.”

Zeremenko tweaked a hamstring while running to first against North Allegheny. She bandaged the injury during the game and doesn’t anticipate any serious problems moving forward. … Astuto on whether Zeremenko’s three-run homer in the champioinship game helped her breathe a little easier: “You can never breathe easier. One missed pitch, and it’s a game-changer.” … Zeremenko has a team-best seven postseason RBI and is hitting .667 in three playoff games.