Big hit eludes Mikes in 6-2 loss
EVERETT – Leaving two runners on base after scoring one run in the top of the first inning of Saturday’s PIAA Class A quarterfinal against Southern Huntingdon worried Carmichaels softball coach Dave Briggs.
So, too, did leaving one in scoring position in the third and stranding runners on first and second in the sixth and seventh innings.
The Mikes certainly had chances but couldn’t get the key hit when it mattered most, and that led to a 6-2 loss to the Rockets at Everett Elementary School yesterday that brought Carmichaels’ season to a close.
“We couldn’t get the big hit,” Briggs said, “A couple of the earlier innings, if we get a big hit, I think that would’ve blown it open. We just didn’t do it.”
The loss ends Carmichaels’ season at 22-4 following its second consecutive appearance in the WPIAL Class A championship game.
This group of seniors will leave the program with a 75-10 career record – without a loss at home – and no doubt have made their mark on the program.
“They kind of took us to the next level in terms of state playoffs, WPIAL finals and stuff like that,” Briggs said. “Took our program up a step.”
Erica Burns had three hits for Carmichaels and drove in pinch-runner Rachael Hathaway with a sharp single to center in the top of the fifth inning.
That, however, was followed by a strikeout and a flyout – another missed opportunity, one of several on this day.
Carmichaels got one run on right fielder Regina Menhart’s single past second baseman Anna Goshorn in the first but made two outs on five pitches to leave two aboard.
In the sixth, Carmichaels put two runners on after an error, a fielder’s choice and first baseman Danielle McClellan’s single up the middle, though a groundout to second ended that threat.
Center fielder Mia Virgili and second baseman Caroline Cree singled in the seventh before a flyout and a groundout ended it, sending Southern Huntingdon into the semifinals where the Rockets will face Neshannock.
“We wanted another shot at Neshannock,” Briggs said of the team the Mikes lost to the WPIAL final. “A little disappointed that we’re not going to get it. But they hung in there. They hit the ball.”
Southern Huntingdon started slowly, managing just three hits while striking out five times against Burns in the first four innings. The Rockets scored six runs on six hits in the final three innings.
“I don’t know why they just can’t start and keep going,” Southern Huntingdon coach Terri Lessley said.
With Carmichaels ahead, 1-0, in the top of the fifth, Goshorn scored on a Carmichaels error to tie it. Following Burns’ single, catcher McKenna Garlock put the Rockets ahead for good with a two-run single in the top of the sixth, a hard-hit ball that tipped Amanda Brown’s glove at third.
Southern Huntingdon tacked on three more in the seventh courtesy of first baseman Chandler Kern’s run-scoring single, a Carmichaels error and a sacrifice fly.
“We were trying to avoid a high strikeout total, hoping that a bunch of the girls would at least make contact,” Lessley said. “That’s what we started to do early, and I think that gave them a little bit of confidence that they could hit her. We just waited until we got the timing down.”
Extra bases
Burns struck out six. … Rockets pitcher Julisa Zinobile recently lost her great grandfather and has been pitching with a picture of him in her back pocket. She had five strikeouts Saturday. … Kern had three hits for Southern Huntingdon, Leonard two.