District 11 Softball: Pottsville edges Bangor in 8 innings in Class 5A quarterfinal
Peyton Eckert pitched all eight innings for Pottsville on Tuesday against Bangor in a District 11 Class 5A quarterfinal at the CACL Complex. Eckert allowed just four hits and no earned runs in the Crimson Tide's 3-2 victory. Batting is Bangor's Kaylynn Figurski; catching for Pottsville is Olivia Wessner. (Photo by Bob Lipsky)
POTTSVILLE — Megan Yost didn’t try to do too much.
The Pottsville sophomore acknowledged being nervous when she stepped to the plate with the game on the line Tuesday. So she just tried to keep it simple and stay positive. That mindset paid off when Yost grounded a walk-off, game-winning RBI single to center field in the bottom of the eighth inning, lifting Pottsville over Bangor 3-2 in a District 11 Class 5A quarterfinal at the CACL Complex.
“Our kids, we battled,” Pottsville coach Chuck Rinaldo said. “We could have packed it in when they put those two runs on the board, but I’m really proud of the effort.”
Fourth-seeded Pottsville (12-9) started strong, talling single runs in the first and second innings for a 2-0 lead.
In the first inning, Jes Siminitus lined a single up the middle, stole second, took third on a wild pitch and scored on Yost’s safety squeeze bunt.
In the second inning, Izzy Kunstek and Olivia Wessner rapped back-to-back, two-out singles to put runners at the corners. The Tide attempted a double steal, and fifth-seeded Bangor (9-13) elected to try to pick the runner off third base. Instead, the catcher’s throw got away down the left-field line, and Kunstek raced home with Pottsville’s second run.
Meanwhile, Pottsville junior right-hander Peyton Eckert mowed down the Slaters in the early going. She retired the first 11 batters she faced and finished with a four-hitter in eight innings of work. The two runs she allowed were unearned.
After the fast start, Pottsville’s offense went dormant in innings 4-7 as the Tide managed just one baserunner, a walk to Siminitus, during a stretch in which Bangor right-hander Madalynn Giera set down 14-of-15 hitters.
That gave the Slaters time to rally, and they started to time Eckert better the second and third times through the lineup.
In the sixth, they used a pair of Pottsville errors to tie the game 2-2. Emma Chaney had a pinch-hit RBI single, and the second run scored on an error.
Bangor threatened again in the seventh and eighth innings, but both times, Eckert the the Tide rose to the challenge.
In the seventh, Kaileigh McGowan tried to take third base when a pitch popped out of Wessner’s glove. The Tide catcher quickly recovered and fired a strike to third baseman Jo Barnhart, who dropped the tag on McGowan to erase a baserunner and record a huge second out.
In the eighth, Marissa Siu walked and went first-to-third on Emma Christy’s sacrifice bunt. With Pottsville’s infield in, Eckert got Kaylynn Figurski to pop out to shortstop. Then Eckert got Brook Hermanski to pop out to Wessner to strand the go-ahead run at third base.
“I’ve got to give Eckert credit,” Rinaldo said. “She battled. She could have gotten a little bit discouraged at times. We didn’t make some plays a couple times, but she kept her composure and stayed the course.”
In the bottom of the eighth, Pottsville’s Lana Cromyak led off with a bunt single, took second on Siminitus’ sacrifice bunt and moved to third on Barnhart’s groundout. Yost then delivered with a hard single past the outstretched glove of the second baseman and into center field, allowing Cromyak to cross the plate with the winning run and setting off a big Tide celebration near home plate.
“I said to Lana, right from the get-go: ‘We need to get a bunt down. We need to get a baserunner,’ ” Rinaldo said. “She got a great bunt down; she beat it out. … Megan Yost comes up, a lot of pressure on that kid. Two outs and comes up with a big walk-off single to win the game for us. That’s the excitement of high school sports, right there.”
Pottsville advances to face No. 1 seed Pleasant Valley (12-8) at 7 p.m. Friday at Patriots Park in Allentown. No. 2 Southern Lehigh (14-7) and No. 3 Pocono Mountain East (10-10) will meet in the other semifinal at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Patriots Park.
“This is a huge step for us,” Rinaldo said. “This is a big step for our program, for these kids. They have an opportunity to win a district championship. We’ve moved up to 5A, and I think one team has won a 5A title in the history of Pottsville, and that’s our boys’ basketball team. We could be the second team to have an opportunity to win a district title. Before we do that, though, we have to take care of business on Friday night against Pleasant Valley.”
