CURWENSVILLE – The Curwensville Lady Tide opened defense of their PIAA Class A State Championship with an 8-0 victory over visiting DuBois Central Catholic (DCC) in the quarter-finals of the District 9 tournament. The Wednesday afternoon win keeps the Lady Tide’s winning streak going strong at 18 straight.
Curwensville, the top seed, is now 19-1 for 2008.
The Lady Tide defeated the Lady Cardinals in their first game of the season back on April 2, 4-0.
This time the only difference was that DCC had two hits instead of one.
Curwensville junior Holly Lansberry went six innings to pick up her 17th win of the year, striking out nine in the process. Erin Bressler pitched the final frame, preserving the shutout.
The Tide offense got in gear right from the start by scoring two runs in the bottom of the first as Sara Clark and Shannon McDonald smacked back to back one out singles. Catcher Ashley Demchak hit a fly ball to left field that was dropped, allowing Clark to score the game\’s first tally. McDonald then scored on a sacrifice fly by Jenessa Stiles.
Curwensville upped it’s lead by one in the bottom of the second when Bressler singled and stole second base. Morgan Peterman then put down a bunt that DCC pitcher Abbie Heigel overthrew to first base as Bressler raced home making it 3-0 Curwensville.
The third inning for the Lady Tide was their biggest and mostly deadly of the day as the home team scored four times to put the game in cruise control.
McDonald reached on an error to start things off. She moved to second on a fielders choice and scored on a double by Stiles down the left field line. Stacey Johnson singled, which brought home Stiles to make it 5-0 in favor of Curwensville.
Head coach Allen Leigey then inserted Lindsey Barrett as a pinch runner for Johnson. Barrett moved to second on a passed ball and then moved to third on a bunt single by Tess Bloom. Bloom promptly swiped second base.
With runners on second and third Bressler singled home Barrett while moving Bloom to third. Lauren McKeown picked up an RBI when she grounded out to second on a fielder’s choice which scored Bloom.
The Tide would add another run in the bottom of the fourth to set the final at 8-0. It was the fifth straight shutout for Curwensville who have now outscored their opponents 204-3 since losing to Clearfield 5-1on April 9, the second game of the year.
Coach Leigey picked out some of his squad, commenting, “Jenessa (Stiles), Erin (Bessler) and Stacey (Johnson) came through for us with some nice timely hitting. And it was nice to see Shannon (McDonald) and Tess (Bloom) each get a couple of hits.” Then Leigey added, “Once again it was a total team effort. That’s exactly how we have to play, as it only gets tougher.”
Bressler and Johnson also had two hits to help the Lady Tide move on to the semi-finals were they will meet up with Elk County Catholic next Tuesday at 4:30 pm at a site to be determined.
Elk County Catholic, the number four seed, beat Clarion 3-0 Wednesday to advance to meet Curwensville, the number one seed.
The Lady Tide shut out the Lady Crusaders in two prior regular season games, 6-0 and 3-0.
DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC – 0 Sarah Flick ss 4000, Molly Yebernetsky cf 2000, Megan Thomas 2b 2000, Abbie Hegel p 3010, Gabby Saldutte c 3010, Bekka Stoughton 1b 3000, Emily Miknis dp 2000, Kim Caldori flex/rf 0000, Sarah Esposito 3b 3000, Kristen Nesbitt lf 2000, Kari Kruk lf 0000. TOTALS – 24 0 2 0
CURWENSVILLE – 8 Holly Lansberry p 4000, Sara Clark lf 3210, Shannon McDonald ss 4220, Ashley Demchak c 4000, Jenessa Stiles 3b 2112, Stacey Johnson 1b 3022, Lindsey Barrett pr 0100, Tess Bloom cf 3120, Erin Bressler rf 3121, Morgan Peterman 2b 2000, Lauren McKeown ph 1001. TOTALS – 29 8 10 6
SCORE BY INNINGS R H E
DCC 000 000 0 0 2 3
Curwensville 214 100 X 8 10 3
ERRORS – Nesbitt, Heigel, Thomas, McDonald 2, Demchak. LOB – DCC – 7 Curwensville – 5. 2B – Stiles, Bloom. SB – Caldori, Bressler 2, Bloom. SAC – Stiles HBP – Caldori (by Bressler)
PITCHING IP H R ER BB K
DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC
Heigel 6 10 8 6 1 1
CURWENSVILLE
Lansberry 6 2 0 0 2 9
Bressler 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 -HB
WP – Lansberry (17-1) LP – Heigel