May 13, 2015 4 min read

McKEES ROCKS – The weather was raw, the wind was brisk and the players were cold long before the first pitch of Trinity High School’s WPIAL softball playoff game Wednesday afternoon against Central Valley.

To stop the players from complaining about the cold, the WPIAL’s site manager permitted pregame warmups to begin early. As a result, the game’s first pitch was thrown about 10 minutes before the scheduled 2 p.m. start time.

That means if you arrived 10 minutes after 2 p.m., then you missed almost all the scoring and excitement.

Trinity’s five-run first inning and the right arm of pitcher Paige Galentine drained much of the drama from this one as the Hillers crusied to a 6-0 victory in a Class AAA first-round game at Fairhaven Park.

Galentine, a junior, threw a one-hitter and drove in two runs, and Hali Justice and Shelby Clemens each had two RBI, as Trinity (15-4) easily advanced to Tuesday’s quarterfinals against West Allegheny, a 5-1 winner over Greensburg Salem.

Now in her second postseason as Trinity’s pitcher, Galentine threw strikes, worked the outside corner against right-handed batters and let her defense do much of the work. Perhaps most important, Galentine was calm and relaxed while she pitched.

“Last year, I think she felt like there was more pressure on her being a pitcher in the playoffs for the first time,” Trinity coach Shawn Gray explained. “She’s a junior now and she’s more mature. She let her defense work today.”

Galentine had only one strikeout, but she walked just two batters and got 13 outs on ground balls. The lone hit by Central Valley (10-6) was a clean line-drive single up the middle by Brenna Cepulli to lead off the top of the second inning. Cepulli was stranded at third base and was one of only two Warriors to reach scoring position. Galentine faced only two batters over the minimum during the last five innings.

“I’m pitching to spots more this year instead of just trying to strike people out,” Galentine said of her development as a pitcher. “I’m trying to make batters hit my pitch and get groundouts and popouts.”

Galentine used her bat to play a big role in Trinity’s big bottom of the first inning.

After Galentine induced three quick groundouts in the top of the inning, Madison Hornack smacked a leadoff single for Trinity past a drawn-in third baseman and advanced to second when the ball was misplayed by the left fielder. Central Valley then dropped Olivia Gray’s popup for a second error and Delaney Elling walked to load the bases.

Galentine then dropped a single into right field to give Trinity a 2-0 lead. Justice followed with a two-run double to the fence in right centerfield.

Clemens followed with a fly ball that was caught in foul territory by right fielder Hunter Daman. Justice tagged and advanced to third base, and when the Warriors didn’t get the ball back to the infield quickly enough, Justice kept running and scored all the way from second base on a sacrifice fly.

“Obviously, it was a good first inning for us,” Trinty coach Shawn Gray said. “We would have liked to have scored more than six in the game. We were hitting the ball hard but right at them.”

The only run produced over the final six innings was scored in the third. Elling led off with a single and Galentine followed with a double to the centerfield fence. Elling advanced to third on the play and scored one out later, when Clemens grounded into a fielder’s choice.

“We didn’t know much about Central Valley other than knowing a couple of players,” Gray said. “We were told that they are scrappy and they stayed in the game for seven innings. Any time you’re down five runs in the first inning, it’s deflating, so credit them for staying in the there for the full seven.”