HS Softball: Pine Grove battles past Schuylkill Haven in Schuylkill League quarterfinals
Pine Grove players congratulate teammate Lily Flynn after she blasted a three-run home run during Monday night's 7-1 win over Schuylkill Haven in the Schuylkill League quarterfinals. (Photo by Bob Lipsky)
ORWIGSBURG — Jamie Dinger was nearly unhittable.
Pine Grove’s power-pitching sophomore right-hander hurled a one-hit complete game Monday night to lead the Cardinals past Schuylkill Haven 7-1 in a Schuylkill League softball quarterfinal at Blue Mountain’s Patton Field. Dinger struck out 13 and walked two. She recorded four 1-2-3 innings and retired the final eight batters she faced.
Dinger got good support from her defense, especially catcher Tailyn Bohr, who caught a popped-up bunt and threw out a runner trying to steal. That helped Dinger face just 24 batters over the seven innings.
“I’m proud of the defense, and I’m proud of the way Jamie pitched for us,” Pine Grove coach Ryan Leffler said. “It’s what we’ve been strong in all year, not giving many (runs) up. The key for us is to execute, get one run an inning. We got to manufacture some runs early on and again, I’m proud of the kids how they made adjustments at the end.”
With the win, Division I runner-up Pine Grove (19-2) advances to meet Division II champion Williams Valley (19-1) in the semifinals. That game is scheduled for 4:30 Tuesday afternoon at Patton Field, but Schuylkill League officials have contingency plans in place should heavy rain hit the area.
Tri-Valley (15-5), a 7-4 winner over Tamaqua in the first quarterfinal, is scheduled to face Division I champion North Schuylkill (15-3) in the second semifinal at approximately 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Despite the six-run margin in favor of Pine Grove, this one was close for the first five innings as Schuylkill Haven’s Grace Line went toe-to-toe matching zeroes with Dinger.
The Cardinals jumped on Schuylkill Haven (15-6) right away with a first-inning run. Callee Leffler led off by scorching a ground-rule double into the right-field corner. She moved to third on Hannah Aungst’s sacrifice bunt and scored on Madison Shiffer’s line single to right. Shiffer finished 2-for-3 with a double.
The game stayed 1-0 until the fourth when Pine Grove added an insurance run. Addison Zimmerman roped a one-out double, advanced on a groundout and scored on Chelcy Clark’s RBI double. Clark went 3-for-3 on the night.
Schuylkill Haven manufactured a run of its own in the top of the fifth. With one out, Aisley Jenan doubled to left for the Hurricanes’ first, and only, hit. Sacrifice bunts by Allie Scherer and Line brought Jenan around to score and draw Schuylkill Haven within a run at 2-1.
Pine Grove answered in the bottom of the fifth with its trademark small ball. Meadow Umbenhauer got hit by a pitch, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on Aungst’s safety squeeze bunt to make it 3-1.
The Cardinals broke the game open with a four-run sixth inning. Lily Flynn launched a three-run home run over the left-field fence to up the advantage to 6-1. Umbenhauer then tripled and scored on Callee Leffler’s sacrifice fly.
While the top of the Pine Grove lineup gets most of the attention, the 7-8-9 hitters — Clark, Flynn and Umbenhauer — contributed much to the victory. They went a combined 5-for-8 with three runs scored and four RBIs.
“Early on, we weren’t patient enough in my eyes,” Ryan Leffler said. “We had some good swings, but some swings we were getting ourselves out on. Later in the game, I felt like we settled in, made better adjustments at the plate, and they drilled the pitch. They drove it. They got their pitch to hit, and they drove it.”
