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West Greene faces familiar foe in Dubois Central Catholic

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West Greene is known as a dominant softball team and rightly so with the way it has overwhelmed its opponents in most games over these past four seasons.

But don’t let the Pioneers fool you into thinking they are afraid of a close battle.

That just hasn’t been the case for coach Bill Simms’ team as it prepares to take on DuBois Central Catholic at 2 p.m. today in a PIAA Class A semifinal game at Slippery Rock University.

The winner will move to Friday’s state championship at Penn State University against either Williams Valley or Millersburg.

West Greene is 7-1 in the postseason since 2016 in games decided by three runs or less. The Pioneers are 3-1 in one-run games with the only loss coming to Williams Valley, 9-8, in walk-off fashion for the 2016 state title.

West Greene (21-4) showed its mettle again Friday when it survived a 5-4 clash with Clarion at Slippery Rock in the quarterfinals, keeping alive their hopes of winning a third consecutive state championship.

Clarion, down 5-0, loaded the bases with no outs and eventually got the tying run on base and the winning run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning.

The Pioneers stayed calm, thanks in part to a visit to the mound by Simms during the Clarion uprising, and took the sure outs, ignored the meaningless runs as they scampered home and secured the win on a sharp ground out back to pitcher Jade Renner.

“I went out and told them, ‘Hey, don’t try to make a hero play here. If there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind, we’re going to first base with it,'” Simms said. “We thought we could get three outs before they could get five runs.”

West Greene may find itself in a tight battle with Dubois Central Catholic, which is 25-0 on the field after defeating Claysburg-Kimmel in the quarterfinals. The Cardinals record is 16-9 because they were forced to forfeit nine games because of a player who wasn’t entered on the roster was reportedly turned into the PIAA.

Dubois and West Greene are meeting for the third time in four years in the state playoffs. The Pioneers defeated Dubois 5-2 in 2016 and 9-5 in 2017, both games were also state semifinals.

“We went out and watched them at Mount Aloysius (a 6-5 quarterfinal win over Claysburg Kimmel) and they had a nice come-from-behind victory,” Simms said. “They tied it in the bottom of the seventh and then won it in the bottom of the ninth.

“They showed they’re battle-tested in tight games as well. Their outfield is extremely long and athletic and the catcher has a great arm. We don’t know a full scouting report from what you would get in watching them in 10 games, but in the one game we saw them, we know that they’re a very, very solid team, well-coached.

“It should be a great game in the state semifinal I think.”

While West Greene has steamrolled its section foes for the most part since 2016, it’s putting together a competitive non-section schedule that has sharpened the Pioneers in tight games, according to Simms.

“We’ve spent a lot of money to go to Myrtle Beach to play in high-level games at the beginning of the season against much bigger schools and classifications, that’s why it, hopefully, pays off here at the end,” Simms said. “We need to go out and play a huge non-conference schedule and we have. That’s what’s prepared us for these playoff games like the one we got into on Friday.”

While this is the final go-around for the Pioneers’ senior class, which includes senior starters Kaitlyn Rizor, Madison Lampe, McKenna Lampe, Brianna Goodwin and Mackenzie Carpenter, Simms prefers not to ponder about that just yet.

“We’re trying to kind of put that on the back burner and just ‘carpe diem,’ live for the moment,” Simms said. “We know our days are numbered with this group but we’d just like to do what we can do to extend the season one more game.

“DuBois Central is going to be a formidable opponent but I’m sure they’re going to get our best shot.”

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