SLIPPERY ROCK – On a day when record-setting pitcher Holly Lansberry was hit as hard as she has been all season, the Curwensville Area High School softball team picked a perfect time to go on a hitting binge of its own.
The once-beaten Lady Tide, which had been struggling a little to light the scoreboard in the last three weeks, altered its playoff winning formula by pounding 16 hits off Union City ace Carrie Williams to roll past the Bears 9-3 in a PIAA Class A quarter-final game Thursday afternoon.
Jenessa Stiles ripped four consecutive singles, Ashley Demchak and Sarah Clark had three hits apiece and Lansberry and Stacey Johnson chipped in two hits each.
The big blows came minutes apart in the second inning.
Shannon McDonald drilled a two-run single just under the 200-foot mark in dead center and Johnson crushed her first home run over the fence for three runs.
\”The bats carried us,\” Curwensville coach Allen Leigey said with a big smile. \”And it was needed. I always say, if we get three we win. Today, if we only score three, we\’re still playing.\”
Instead, Curwensville (24-1) bolted to a 7-0 lead after two innings and now is halfway home in its bid to match the 2007 team\’s run to the state championship.
The District 9 champions will return to Slippery Rock University Monday for the 4 p.m. Western Final showdown against defending state champion Vincentian Academy (22-2), the District 7 titlist.
Curwensville is 2-0 on The Rock Field, and this one pretty much was decided in the first two innings.
\”We talked about hitting early and often, and we put up two and then put the five up,\” Leigey said. \”That just felt really good.\”
Half of the Lady Tide\’s hits came in its first two go-rounds against Williams, who had pitched every game for the Region 2 and District 10 champion Bears with an earned run average just over one.
Curwensville struck quickly.
Lansberry\’s speed turned a hard smash to third into a game-opening single. Third baseman Bethany Mongera made a great play with a diving stop but was unable to throw out the Lady Tide senior.
A wild pitch put Lansberry on second, and she raced home on a one-out single to right center by Demchak, who moved up on the throw to the plate. After courtesy runner Lindsay Barrett reached third on another wild pitch, Stiles started her big day with a liner to left for an RBI.
An error on Tess Bloom\’s grounder opened the door for the Lady Tide in the second, all five runs going into the book as unearned.
With one out, Lansberry bunted for a hit and easily advanced to second when the Bears opted to prevent Bloom from scoring from third.
McDonald followed with her rope to the fence, Stiles dropped a single in short left and Johnson, who had gone nine games without an RBI, blasted her home run.
\”It was really special when Stacey hit that, because when we were here in 2007, her sister Dana hit one over about the same spot against Cambridge Springs,\” Leigey said. \”We were talking out there while we were watching the other game, and I said, \’Stacey, it\’s your turn. You\’ve gotta do what big sister did. She didn\’t disappoint. It was a good shot.\”
Curwensville needed singles by Demchak, Stiles, Johnson and Clark to produce a run in the fourth. Clark got the RBI with a bouncer that Williams deflected.
Union City (20-3) showed it wasn\’t intimidated by Lansberry, getting three hits in the first two frames.
With two on and none out in the second, Lansberry retired Mongera on a foul pop and then recorded two of her 10 strikeouts.
Her only 1-2-3 inning was in the third, thanks to a great backhanded stop by Stiles on Kelsey Sullivan\’s wicked shot that was headed down the third base line.
\”That was just picture perfect,\” Leigey said. \”We practiced that. We must have given 95 backhands last night in the gym, boom, boom, boom.\”
The Bears, coming off the program\’s first state playoff win after copping their District 10 title, broke through with two runs in the lower fourth, both scoring on errors although Megan Brown, Williams and Rashel Gilson delivered three solid hits.
In the fifth, McDonald reached base on an error and Demchak lined a double to deep left center for Curwensville\’s final run.
Williams, who allowed only three earned runs, ended the scoring in the sixth with a long home run to center.
The Bears got to Lansberry for eight hits.
The Lady Tide right-hander had surrendered only 25 in 130-2/3 innings, and only two teams managed more than two, with West Branch\’s five the previous high.
\”They hit the ball,\” Leigey said. \”That was a tough 9-3.\”
Still, the outcome was never in doubt as Lansberry padded her career strikeout total to 851. She issued one walk, just No. 10 for the season.
Leigey conceded Lansberry didn\’t turn in her \’A\’ game but quickly added, \”Her B-plus game is good enough.\”
He pointed out, \”They were really gearing up for the fastball. We had to go away from that. At the end, we were calling a lot of off-speed stuff and getting them to have to guess what we were throwing. It seemed to work pretty good.\”
Except for the blip in the fourth inning, the Lady Tide was solid in the field, as usual.
\”They played good defense, they really did,\” Leigey said. \”The 16 hits came in variety, right up and down the lineup. Jenessa was hitting the ball a ton.
\”They all contributed in some part to help us win this game.\”
It will take a similar all-around effort for Curwensville to prevail in the duel of the last two PIAA gold medalists next week.
\”The next one\’s huge,\” Leigey said. \”The next one is going to be the big one. We\’re gonna come to play and try to move on.\”
CURWENSVILLE — 9
Holly Lansberry p 5220, Shannon McDonald ss 5212, Ashley Demchak c 4132, Jenessa Stiles 3b 5241, Stacey Johnson 1b 4123, Molly Demchak dp 3010, Jenae Stiles rf (flex) 1000, Morgan Peterman 2b 1000, Sarah Clark lf 4031, Tess Bloom cf 2100, Erin Bressler rf 4000. TOTALS: 37 9 16 9.
UNION CITY — 3
Jaime Gawlinski cf 4010, Kelsey Sullivan ss 4010, Brooke Reynolds 2b 3000, Lori Beth Nunemaker 1b 4010, Megan Brown c 3110, Carrie Williams p 2221, Rashel Gilson rf 3020, Bethany Mongera 3b 3000, Megan Kimmy lf 2000, Rachel Rumfola lf 1000. TOTALS: 29 3 8 1.
Score by Innings
Curwensville 250 110 0 – 9 16 2
Union City 000 201 0 – 3 8 2
Errors – Jenessa Stiles, Bloom; Sullivan 2. LOB – Curwensville 10, Union City 7. 2B – A. Demchak. HR – Johnson (1); Williams. Sac – Bloom 2; Reynolds.
Pitching
Curwensville – Lansberry 7 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 10 K.
Union City – Williams 7 IP, 16 H, 9 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 2 K.
WP – Williams 2.
W – Lansberry (23-1). L – Williams (20-3).
Umpires – Bill Dithrich, Tom Flaherty, Tom McElhaney, Bryan Callan.
