York — The Fenchville Her-a-canes 16 and under fast-pitch softball team won five games and lost one over the last three days to win the silver medal at the Keystone State Games in York.
The Her-a-canes vastly improved themselves over last year\’s performance when they went 2-2 and lost their first game in championship bracket play.
The Her-a-canes picked a bad time for a bad game – the Gold Medal Game. Despite 8 errors against the Wyoming Valley Flames, the Her-a-canes never quit and almost pulled off a great comeback, only to fall short 6-5.
Down 6-0, Frenchville scored 5 runs in the top of the 7th to give the Flames quite a scare in a game they thought was all but over. Kristine Foltz ripped a 2-run triple to set the score at 6-5, but was stranded at third to end the game.
Holly Lansberry was the tough luck loser in the final game, despite only surrendering 6 hits and 1 walk.
To get to the Gold Medal game, Frenchville won 2 earlier games on Saturday.
First they took care of the Erie Krush, 11-0. That was their 4th shut out in 4 games! Mandy Rowles was the winner after pitching the first 3 innings of the 5 inning game.
Frenchville would score all the runs they would need early on as they combined for 10 runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings.
Nikki Bumbarger, Holly Lansberry, and Megan Butler each had two hits in the easy quarterfinal victory.
In the semi-final win over the Phillies RBI, Frenchville gave up their first run and was losing 1-0 after 5 innings.
In the 6th inning after 2 outs were recorded Frenchville made their comeback. Ashley Demchak got things started with a walk. Mandy Rowles followed with a single. Then Kristine Foltz and Shannon McDonald had run scoring singles to give the Her-a-canes their first lead at 2-1. 3 insurance runs were added in the 7th to set the final at 5-1.
Holly Lansberry picked up the win in relief of Callie Lyle.
After their very successful Keystone State Games performance, the Her-a-canes will return to league play with a 44-6 record on the summer.