St. Basil loses thriller in 11 to Pine Grove in PIAA AA 1st round

NORTH MANHEIM >> When it comes to playoff games, sometimes you only get one shot to win the game or cash in on an opportunity. In Monday’s PIAA Class AA first round game, the St. Basil softball team had more than one opportunity but they still were sparing.

It would be hard to say that either team did a great job of cashing in on chances in a game that went to 11 innings but Pine Grove did cash in on one more.

A walk-off hit in the bottom of the 11th inning gave Pine Grove the 2-1 win.

“I thought we battled,” St. Basil coach Steve Sonneborn said. “They had us on the ropes from the first inning and we just kept getting out of it.”

The first and best opportunity for Basil to win the game came in the top of the sixth inning with the game tied at 0-0 as nine-hole hitter Lindsay Joyce and leadoff hitter Abby Carter started the inning with back-to-back hits. Kelly Ryan than sacrificed the runners and Amanda Clark walked to load the bases.

Sophomore clean-up hitter Paige Larini then struck out after being ahead in the count 3-1. Junior Angela Zeidler popped out to end the inning.

“We had our opportunities, we just didn’t capitalize,” Sonneborn said. “We had a good shot with like second and third (in the eighth inning), and a couple of times with our four hitter up.”

It looked as if St. Basil’s failure to score was going to cost them in the bottom of the next inning as Pine Grove had a pair of runners on. No. 8 hitter Avery Nagle hit a line drive up the middle on the second base side. Unfortunately Nagles just hit it in the vicinity of the one player she didn’t want to hit it near—Carter.

Carter sprawled out and made a diving catch to end the sixth inning earning the Panthers another opportunity to try to win the game. Basil would get a runner on in the seventh. And the eighth. And the ninth.

“She’s just absolutely incredible,” Sonneborn said of Carter. “The play that she made (in the sixth inning) that saved the game at that point. What a great play, and she’s done that for four years for us. There will be no replacing her. And that’s the way she practices and that’s why she’s as good as she is.”

As the game went into the 10th inning the game was still scoreless. Because of the length of the game each team started with a runner (the ninth hitter due up in the inning) on second base.

The Panthers cashed in in the top of the 10th as Jess Marino started on second, was sacrificed over to third by Sam Fleury and knocked in by Carter on a RBI single. Although Basil did get the run across it also left the bases loaded giving Pine Grove a chance to tie.

Pine Grove was down to its last out as pitcher Liv Lehman hit a little flair into right field to score Jen Kaufman.

Basil did not get a run across in the 11th as Pine Grove hit a pair of singles — the first from Nagle and the second a walk off RBI single from McKenzee Warner giving Pine Grove the 2-1 win in 11 innings.

It would be negligent to not make mention of the pitching performance that the hurlers from both teams put on. Lehman, for Pine Grove, lived on the outside corner and completely shut down the Panther lineup for the first five innings of the game.

For Basil, Arianna Sticco was equally impressive. For a girl that is more less the pitcher by default for the Panthers, she battled with the Pine Grove lineup and spun a gem for 11 innings. Unfortunately for Sticco and the Panthers, someone and some team was going to get tagged with a loss

“I can’t say enough about Arianna,” Sonneborn said. “Kiera (Peters) goes down and we’re like ‘what are we going to do?’ and she’s like ‘I got it.’ And she was absolutely amazing.”

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