Lehigh Valley off to a 2-1 start
Catty’s Delaney Troxell rips a triple in the bottom of the seventh for a 6-5 walkoff win over Chester County
The Lehigh Valley Carpenter Cup softball team began Monday at about 5 a.m. wiping the sleep out of their eyes with smiles. About 12 hours later they were still smiling.
A fun day in Philadelphia’s FDR Park produced a 2-1 record and a return trip to South Philly on Wednesday for the quarterfinals and the single-elimination portion of the 17th annual Softball Carpenter Cup tournament sponsored by the Phillies.
Lehigh Valley won two one-run morning games to get off to an outstanding start in the 16-team tournament. Lehigh Valley beat Delaware County 5-4 and topped Chester County 6-5 with a walk-off win in the bottom of the seventh when Catasauqua’s Delaney Troxell tripled home Whitehall’s Kate Yadush from first base with two out after Chester had tied the game with two runs in the top of the seventh.
The local team looked to go 3-0 and had a 5-1 lead entering the bottom of the third of the third and final game of the day against the Suburban One League, but SOL scored seven runs in the third, taking advantage of three errors to break the game open en route to a 9-7 win.
The top eight teams in the 16-team advance to Wednesday. Lehigh Valley will play either Delaware North, Delaware South, Burlington County or the Philadelphia Catholic at 11 a.m. needing three wins to claim the championship. No Lehigh Valley team has won the Softball Carpenter Cup title since 2008.
For a long time this spring it appeared as though there might not be a Lehigh Valley team in the Softball Carpenter Cup, but Brian Fehnel, coach of the Emmaus Sting 18U team, took it over with help from others such as Ricky Sechler and Mike Yadush and they put together a quality team.
“I couldn’t be happier with the group we have,” Fehnel said. “Ricky and Mike were huge help getting the word out. Today we just one had one bad inning where things got away, but other than that they played clean softball and were smiling and happy all day. Even when got here early in the morning they were smiling and ready to go.”
In the win over Delaware County, Troxell, Kassy Aquino (Whitehall) and Carly Gaffney (Palmerton) combined on an 8-hitter and allowed just three earned runs.
Lehigh Valley trailed 2-1 and tied it up in the top of the fourth before breaking it open with three in the fifth. Sage Toman (Northwestern Lehigh) singled in a run and two more scored on an error.
Earlier in the game, Lehigh Valley got an RBI-single by Troxell and a run-scoring groundout by Jordyn Hemingway (Northern Lehigh).
Delaware County fought back with runs in the sixth and seventh, but with the tying run on second in the last inning Gaffney got a flyout to right to end it.
Hannah Makovsky (Northampton), Shayla Morgan (Emmaus) and Hemmingway each had two hits in a 13-hit attack in the opener.
In the game against Chester County, which proved to be the most exciting of the day, Lehigh Valley took a 5-3 lead in the second inning on Toman’s two-run double. Toman also tripled in a run in a three-run first inning, while Gaffney singled in a run and another run scored on a groundout by Yadush.
Yadush began the bottom of the seventh with a single and stayed at first as the next two Lehigh Valley batters popped up. That set the stage for Troxell, who ripped an 0-1 pitch to deep right to chase home Yadush with the game-winning run.
“It’s very exciting,” Troxell, a rising junior, said. “This is my first time playing Carpenter Cup and getting to play with all of these amazing girls from around the Lehigh Valley. It has lived up to my expectations.”
The walk-off triple is something Troxell
won’t forget anytime soon,
“I was pitching when [Chester] got the tying runs and I knew I was coming up in the bottom of the inning and I was just thinking I had to do my job,” she said. “I’ve been hitting well recently and I just had to relax. Hitting that triple felt great.”
Gaffney and Troxell combined on a 4-hitter in the pitching circle, and had a combined eight strikeouts and just one walk while giving up just one earned run.
Lehigh Valley outhit Chester 10-4, but was hurt by four errors. Becahi’s Leah Chladny joined Toman with two hits.
“This has been a great opportunity to make more friends,” Toman said. “This is my first year on this team and I’m really enjoying it. I think we’re going to do well on Wednesday. It will be beneficial to us to sleep in a little and not have to get up at 4 in the morning. I think we’re going to play pretty well.”
In the loss to SOL, Lehigh Valley had 10 hits, including two by Yadush, who also
drove in two runs. Troxell and Aubrey Steiner (Whitehall) had doubles and Chladny had a triple. But five unearned runs were too much to overcome.
“We’re just happy to keep this going and we are going to high school coaches and be around a lot of high school games,” Fehnel said. “I don’t necessarily want to know the players that a coach thinks he has but I want them to text me and let me know if they see someone who impressed them. We want to reach out as much as possible.”
Shayla Morgan, an Emmaus product in her second year with the Carpenter Cup team, said this year’s group isn’t done yet.
“I love this team because we all work together really well,” Morgan said. “I loved playing last year and this year with everything being new I was very excited to come back. I got up at 5 but I didn’t mind it. I kind of like the mornings. I got some Dunkin’ for the ride down here. We’re back here on Wednesday and we’re going to bring it home. I can feel it.”