Armstrong has a crown
Clontz walk-off wins first for school
Armstrong had everything in place for a storybook ending to the WPIAL Class 5A championship game. And that was exactly what Jenna Clontzdid.
Clontz ripped a line-drive opposite field walk-off homer off Mia Smith to straightaway right field to lead off the bottom of the seventh and give top-seeded Armstrong (20-4) a 6-5 victory against No. 2 Penn-Trafford (18-3) and bring the school its first-ever WPIAL team title in any sport.
“It really just hit me when I rounded the bases that this can’t be real,” Clontz said. “We just won the WPIAL title and I just walked it off.”
Armstrong came into being when Kittanning and Ford City high schools merged following the 2015-16 schoolyear.
The River Hawks hockey team won a Class 2A PenguinsCup title in 2018, but the PIHL is not affiliated with the WPIAL.
“It means everything for the community, for the parents for the players,” Armstrong coach Doug Flanders said. “We all worked so hard to get to this point. We knew we had the talent. We knew we could do it. We just had to executeit and we did.”
Clontz was pivotal to the victory as she finished 2 for 3 with the solo home run, a two-run double, three RBI andtwo runs scored.
After the postgame celebration, she was given her home run ball and carried it aroundlike it was a trophy all itsown.
“I’m going to put it on a high shelf,” Clontz said. “I’m going to put the date on it and put it in a glass container.’
Winning the WPIAL final is the continuation of a season of redemption for Armstrong.
In2021, Armstrong was the runner-up to Plum in Section 1, lost to North Hills in the WPIAL final and dropped a 10-7 decision to LampeterStrasburg in the state championshipgame.
Sofar this season the River Hawks have won their section and the WPIAL championship and are already looking forward to another crack atthe PIAA finals.
“That’s been our driving force all year,” Armstrong coach Doug Flanders said. “Just turn silver into gold. That was our memo from the very first practice of the year.’
Like Armstrong, PennTrafford was seeking its first WPIAL softball title. And the Warriors pulled out all the stops in an effort to make it happen.
Penn-Trafford trailed, 3-0, after the first inning and 5-1 after two before it clawed backinto the game.
“They fight, they scrap and they’re just warriors,” Penn-Trafford coach Denny Little said. “They live up to theirname.”
Trailing 5-1 in the third, Penn-Trafford showed it was in it for the long haul. The Warriors picked up three runs in that frame: one on a bunt single by Kylee Piconi, one on a Madison Rapp double and the third on a basesloadedwalk by Hannah Allen tomake it 5-4.
That was how it stayed until Little pulled out all the stops to tie it in the top of the sixth.
Allen led off with a single off Armstrong starter Cameryn Sprankle and was replaced by pinch-runner OliviaPopovich.
Pinch-hitter Rilie Moors laid down a perfect sacrifice to move Popovich to second. Another pinch-hitter, Alexa Forsythe, lined a single to center to drive her home to tiethe game.
Penn-Trafford used three pinch-hitters and two pinchrunners in the sixth to tie the score but could not take the lead.
“I felt very confident there in that last inning,” Flanders said. “I told the girls that I wouldn’t want it any other way.”