South Park grabs softball title

Rittenbaugh and Jennifer Kaufman led off with singles. Rittenbaugh moved to third and Kaufman to second on Trisha Kopinetz’s groundout. But Dean got Caitlyn Becher to line out to first base, and South Park averted disaster.

“She hits her spots,” coach Larry Mercurio said of Dean. “That’s what she did here tonight. They were very good batters, scary to throw to. We just did everything that we could do to keep them off balance, keep them contained, and it was not easy.”

South Park grabbed a 1-0 lead before the weather delay thanks to two Pine Grove errors. The delay began at 4:45 p.m. and ended at 8:15, when Pine Grove finally got to bat.

The Eagles tacked on another run in the second, as Chelsea Carozza came home on Taylor Glowa’s bunt for a 2-0 lead. It took an inning for Pine Grove to settle in, with a single by Maura Lehman scoring Emily Hindman and Avery Nagle to tie the score at 2-2.

“They came out of the gate ready to go,” Mercurio said. “When the game was tied up, I heard a couple comments like ‘ Hey, don’t get down.’ And I’m like, don’t get down? There’s no score right now. The game’s 0-0. They bounced back.”

After two scoreless innings, South Park’s Morrison doubled and moved to third on Katlyn Pavlick’s single in the fifth and eventually scored on Charlyn Blackburn’s fly out to right field.

Morrison led off with a double in the seventh and South Park loaded the bases, but Morrison was out at home. With the bases still loaded, Pavlick scored on a wild pitch by Pine Grove’s Olivia Lehman, and the Eagles extended ed their lead at 4-2.

Though originally scheduled for 1:30 p.m., the game was moved to 4 p.m. so fans would not have to choose between watching it and South Park baseball’s eventual 5-0 loss against Dallas, which started at 1 p.m.

Since the PIAA has held baseball and softball championships, only one WPIAL school has sent both teams to finals in the same year — Bethel Park in 1987. Loyalsock won a PIAA baseball and softball title in 2008, the only school to nab both championships the same year.