Cruise control
North Penn rolls past Coatesville, earns 1st PIAA berth since 2014
The offense stayed scorching, Mady Volpe quieted Coatesville and the North Penn softball team earned its first PIAA berth in four seasons — along with getting a chance to settle things with a Suburban One League Continental Conference rival.
Volpe allowed the visiting 12thseeded Red Raiders just one hit while the No. 4 Knights enacted the 10-run mercy rule for the second straight game this postseason, plating six runs in the fifth to finish off a 10-0 victory in the District 1-6A quarterfinals Friday
afternoon.
“So we’re at the peak of our game right now,” North Penn junior first baseman Elia Namey said. “We’ve been waiting for playoffs and this is when we knew we’d shine and we really are. Our heads are in every game, every minute.”
Namey went 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles and three RBIs while sophomore Paige Paciolla was 2-for-2 with two RBIs as the
Knights (18-4) jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first, added a run in the fourth then batted around to finish things off in the sixth.
North Penn clinched its first state appearance since 2014 when it took second in the district and advances to visit top-seeded Central Bucks South — a 5-1 winner over No. 8 Conestoga — in the 6A semifinals Tuesday.
“I hear we have South and the girls really want South. We’ve been waiting on that and hoping that it would happen and we want them,” Knights coach Rick Torresani said. “We got a little grudge match going there, few of our players in the league, all-league, sort of like didn’t make certain teams and now we want to prove to everybody.”
North Penn and South shared the SOL Continental title with each team winning at home in their two regularseason matchups — South picking up a 5-3 victory April 18 while the Knights blanked the Titans 3-0 May 10.
“The first game, that wasn’t our softball where we lost but then the second game we came in and we played how we did today and how we did on Wednesday (a 13-2 six-inning win over Quakertown in the second round),” Namey said. “So that game’s 100 percent going to come again on Tuesday and we’ll be ready.”
Victoria Juckniewitz was 2-for-3 and scored twice, Jordan Pietrzykoski had two RBI and scored a pair of runs and Emily Groarke collected two RBIs for the Knights, who won their fourth straight and 13th in their last 14.
“We had a good practice yesterday, they’re hitting the ball,” Torresani said. “Like I said before and I’ve been saying it all year, we were down Myrtle (Beach) where it was 75 (degrees) we were cranking it. We were waiting for the warm weather. And now that we’ve had warm weather, we’ve been hitting the ball. Hopefully it’ll continue.”
Coatesville was looking to earn a second-straight PIAA berth after upsetting SOL American champ HatboroHorsham in the second round Wednesday, but the Red Raiders could not figure out Volpe. Coatesville’s lone hit off the freshman right-hander was a one-out single from Maggie Kane in the top of the fourth.
“I think that’s the thing I was most disappointed in. We didn’t really have many quality at-bats,” Red Raiders coach Bill Mendenhall said. “To her credit, she moved the ball up, down, in and out and really moved the ball around and we never really adjusted to her. And we didn’t really — other than the one foul ball — we didn’t hit any balls hard really today.”
Volpe finished with seven strikeouts and walked a pair in posting the five-inning shutout.
“Just waste pitches early in the counts and late in the count getting ahead, not worrying, not being scared — no fear,” Volpe said.
Coatesville starting pitcher McKenna Sherman took the loss, the left-hander giving up seven runs — five earned —in 4 2/3 innings. She did not allow a walk and had one strike out.
“We made the error early. She was hitting her spots and overall I thought she thew a pretty good game, Mendenhall said. “Come the fifth inning, that’s when they started to get to her but otherwise I thought overall she did a good job hitting her spots today.
“You know, there’s a few times today they just threw their hands out and the balls they hit found open spots. But they made a lot of adjustments up at the plate. The momentum was the big thing.”
Coatesville’s PIAA hopes are still alive with the Red Raiders visiting Conestoga in fifth-place playbacks Tuesday.
“That’s what we encouraged — to relax this weekend, have a very short memory,” Mendenhall said. “Our goal to get back to states is still alive and well. We just have to come out and focus and play two solid games next week.
North Penn was out to avoid the playback route, just missing states last season when the Knights let a threerun lead slip away late in a 5-4 loss to Council Rock North in the fifth place game.
“Jordan (Pietrzykoski) always said, she was like, ‘There’s no way I want to play in this playback game,’” Namey said. “We want to get it a 100 percent. We had last year in our mind and we didn’t let that repeat.”
Groarke led off the bottom of the first Friday by reaching on an error, Juckniewitz followed with a single and two batters later Namey ripped a two-RBI double down the third-base line. Namey scored to make it 3-0 on Pietrzykoski’ RBI sacrifice fly to center.
“We knew they were and good team and we knew that wanted to get ahead so that we could let our game roll the rest of the time,” Namey said. “So we hopped on them early and then we just never really let up.”
The Knights made it 4-0 in the fourth when Paciolla’s RBI sacrifice fly to left plated Pietrzykoski.
North Penn scored all six of their run sin the fifth with two outs. Namey doubled to left, bringing home Juckniewitz from first with Pietrzykoski’s RBI double to left center making it 6-0.
Natalie Florschutz took over in the circle for Sherman, but the Knights added four more runs. After a Beer walk, Neal dropped a single into left to plate Pietrzykoski. Beer avoided the tag at home to score on Paciolla’s single for an 8-0 NP advantage. A walk by Tori Chiu loaded the bases for Groarke, who sealed the 10-run win by lining a two-RBI single up the middle. District 1-6A Quarterfinals (4) North Penn 10, (12) Coatesville 0 (5)
Coatesville 00000—0 12 North Penn 30016—10110
WP: MadyVolpe5IP1H0R0ER2B7SO. LP: McKenna Sherman 4.2 IP 8 H 7 R 5 ER 0BB1SO. 2B: NP-Elia Namey 2, Jordan Pietrzykoski. North Penn: Namey 2-3, 3 RBI, R; Pietrzykoski 2 RBI, 2 R; Emily Groarke 2 RBI, R; Victoria Juckniewitz 2-3, 2 R; Paige Paciolla 2-2, 2 RBI, R.