Lansdale Catholic puts up fight, bows out to Archbishop Ryan in PCL quarters

PHILADELPHIA >> For an instant, it looked like Lansdale Catholic was about to tie its Philadelphia Catholic League quarterfinal game with Archbishop Ryan.

Catcher Becca Tiley had put a good swing onto the ball and it seemed destined to drop in shallow center field. Then, Ragdolls center fielder Victoria Black came in closing hard, dove and got her ball under the glove, robbing Tiley of a hit for the third out of the sixth inning.

It was one play that summed up the afternoon for the Crusaders. They played hard, gave everything they had but couldn’t get that one timely play as Ryan ended up taking a 4-1 win to move on to the PCL semifinals Thursday afternoon in Northeast Philadelphia.

“If it gets under her glove, it’s a tie game there and the momentum all swings the other way,” LC coach Paul Suder said. “That being said, the girl made a great play on it. Their shortstop played well, making a catch on that looper that would’ve kept the last inning going and they hit a couple balls that just stayed fair. That’s just how it went today.”

When the teams met in the regular season, Ryan engineered a 7-0 win but prior to Thursday’s game, Suder gave his team a pep talk saying the Ragdolls were the same as they were. LC stayed with Ryan the entire game, undone by a couple of errors and lack of timely hits on offense.

An overthrown ball trying to get a runner at third allowed Ryan to get on the board in the bottom of the first. Another errant throw on a relay in the fourth inning allowed a second Ryan run in before Ragdolls right fielder Skylar Elliott doubled in a run to make it 3-0.

What LC did well was not allow those two errors to snowball. Crusaders senior pitcher Shannon Hill threw a tough game in her last high school outing and got an otherwise solid defense behind her.

“For the most part we played really hard and everyone was playing from their hearts today,” LC senior third baseman Alessandra Messina said. “There was always that possibility that this was our last game of the season and I think at the end of the day we did our best. We had some errors, they played really well but so did we.”

Messina, who is playing softball at LaSalle next year, had two hits in her last game while shortstop Maggie Wunder went 3-for-3. But LC often found itself getting started with one or two outs already on the board, and with Ryan’s defense playing so well, it was tough to build off that.

Such was the case in the sixth inning when LC got its lone run. After Rachel Harryn hit into a fielder’s choice, Wunder ripped a double to put two on base. A wild pitch let Harryn score and put runners on the corners when Hill walked. A passed ball moved the tying run to second.

But then Black made the play of the game.

“We had to be confident and play hard,” Messina said. “It didn’t matter as long as everyone was doing their best coming into it. We had no expectations other than to have fun with it.”

Ryan got the run back in the home half of the sixth but LC’s defense held the hosts to just that sole run thanks to two nice defensive plays. On the first, Messina fielded a bunt, faked to first and trapped a runner between third and home, starting a rundown that Tiley ended with a tag.

The second came on the run-scoring single when Harryn fired to Hill who relayed to Messina at third to throw out an advancing runner.

Though Erin Llewellyn led off the seventh with a pinch-hit single, Emily Ostaszewski made a tremendous play to track down a pop-up off Messina’s bat at the line for the first out. LC grounded out twice more to end the game, close but not close enough.

While the Crusaders won’t continue on like they have in prior seasons, they still viewed this year as a success.

“I’m really going to miss everyone,” Messina said. “I think it was a good year not just on the field for the games but off the field we really bonded. That’s always what matters, if you get along it’s so much more fun to play.”

Joining Hill, who is playing at DeSales, and Messina as seniors going on to college careers is Ashley Seal. Seal, who needed shoulder surgery before the season began, worked hard in rehab and returned for the last few weeks of the season, serving as the designated player on Thursday.

It was that kind of dedication, or Messina stepping up to play catcher for a few games this year, that made this team special to Suder.

“This group of seniors battled harder than anybody,” Suder said. “We weren’t the most talented team, we finished 8-4 in the Catholic League, right in the middle of the pack, but we battled every game. These girls came out and played hard every game.”

Messina said what stood out to her was the team’s overall positivity and the energetic and fun bus rides they had, among plenty of other things.

“When there’s no tension with each other, it makes this game 10 times better,” Messina said. “It’s sad to see the season end but I think we played our best. There were ups and downs, but it was a good ride.”