Perk Valley tops Spring-Ford in rain-shortened game
GRATERFORD >> They had a penchant for the late-game theatrics in the midst of their undefeated run to a PAC-10 Championship last season.
This year, however, Perkiomen Valley knew to maintain similar success, the Vikings had to get the ball rolling early.
Friday, it proved paramount.
Ana Bruni, Gillian Barrie and Kelsey Impink spearheaded the Vikings’ comeback from a first-inning deficit, finishing with six of the team’s eight hits as Perkiomen Valley took the lead for good in fourth before holding on for a 5-4 victory over rival Spring-Ford in a lightning-shortened five-inning contest Friday.
“Our gameplan this season was that we knew we had to score early because our competition is super rough and all the teams are coming for us,” Impink, who finished 1-for-3 with a triple said. “As soon as we got down we knew we had to score runs so that we didn’t get in trouble late in the game.”
“We have a huge target on our back from last season and we knew that we couldn’t let Spring-Ford get comfortable with a lead,” Barrie said. “We knew we had to get back into it.”
The Vikings did just that.
Reeling from the aforementioned 3-0 deficit, the Vikings battled back early, Bruni scoring on an RBI groundout from catcher Noelle McCullough to make it 3-1 after one. After the Rams tacked on another run in the second, the Vikings’ trio went to work. Bruni led the inning with off a triple before Barrie reached first on a slap single to put runners on the corner for Impink. The third baseman responded by belting a fastball to deep center for a triple, plating both Bruni and Barrie to make it 4-3. Impink then came home two batters later off an Abby Wild RBI groundout to second to tie the score at four entering the fourth. Bruni then tripled in the fifth before scoring the eventual game-winning run on a Barrie bunt, avoiding the tag from catcher Megan Kern as she raced home on the throw.
“After the first, I could tell by the atmosphere that everybody was a little down,” Bruni said. “I knew that when I went in (the dugout) that I had to bring them all in. I told them that ‘this is the first inning, we have to pounce right now, we can’t wait.’”
“We had to score that inning,” Impink said. “I was just trying to put the ball in play and hopefully something good happened.”
Bruni finished 3-for-3 with three runs scored and two triples with Barrie 2-for-2 with one run scored and an RBI.
Emily Oltman settled down after the first inning and worked out of a two-on, one-out jam in the fourth before striking out a Ram batter in the fifth to strand a runner on third. The Rider College commit finished the game allowing three hits while striking out five and walking four.
Spring-Ford’s Sophia Cinti led the Rams with two RBI, her laser to the right-center gap bringing home Megan Kern and Maggie McConney to give the Rams an early 2-0 lead in the first. Keira Walton and Jess Della-Guardia added RBIs in the loss.
