Plymouth Whitemarsh holds off Upper Moreland

WHITEMARSH >> The Plymouth Whitemarsh softball team appeared to be on its way to an easy win Tuesday afternoon.

The Colonials headed to the seventh inning with a five-run lead over Suburban One League American Conference rival Upper Moreland.

Twenty minutes — and two hits, two errors, two balks and two walks — later, it didn’t look as easy.

But PW got out of it. Pitcher Allison Beausoleil finished off her complete game with a strikeout to leave the bases loaded in an 8-6 win at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School.

“She bears down.” PW coach Dana Moyer said of her pitcher. “She’s a competitor. She has worked so hard to get to where she’s been and working different pitches, playing a lot. She’s getting used to being in that pressure situation and being able to deliver with it. I’m proud of her.”

Upper Moreland’s Kacey Emmell got the top of the seventh inning started with a single and Chloe Tice reached on an error. After a fielder’s choice, Brianna Hughes made it an 8-4 game with an RBI single.

Jocelyn Baumeister scored on a balk to make it 8-5 and Hughes came around on Jenna Sadowski’s sacrifice fly to make it 8-6 with two outs and runners on first and second.

Maura Casey worked a walk to put the tying run on second base and winning run on first.

Beausoleil buckled down and tallied a strikeout on a check swing to secure the two-run league win.

“I’m thrilled with the way we finished,” Upper Moreland coach Scott Ludlow said. “We certainly could have played better early and it would have put us in a little different position come seventh inning.

“Once the first girl got a hit and got on there our mood swung a little bit. We talked between innings that nobody needs to try to hit a five-run home run. It’s about putting together seven good at-bats or eight good at-bats and getting ourselves back into it. Just about everybody in that last inning had a good at-bat.”

The right-handed Beausoleil picked up the win with a complete game. She allowed six runs on seven hits while striking out four batters and walking three.

The Colonials built their lead in the middle innings. They scored three runs in the third inning, two in the fourth and three in the fifth to take full control.

Emma Carney doubled, Sydney Melillo tripled and Jen Byrne homered — and all scored — in the third inning to give PW a 3-1 lead.

“Our coach said we had to come in hyped this game,” Byrne said. “Everyone bought their energy. We kept cheering for everyone. Wants one person hit, we kept the momentum going.

“I had two strikes on me,” Byrne added about her home run. “I knew if anything was close I had to swing hard. Our coach always tells us to hit it to the right side. I hit it as hard as I can and it went.”

Peyton Baldwin and Melillo each had RBI singles in the fourth to extend the lead back to two, 5-3, after the Golden Bears scored two in the top of the inning.

In the bottom of the fifth, Josee Tassoni and Carney each had RBI singles and Gianna Fazio scored on a wild pitch to add three runs and make it an 8-3 PW advantage.

“They were being selectively aggressive on pitches that were in the zone,” Moyer said. “They were attacking. We work on that stuff a lot in practice. They’re finally buying in and tearing it up.”

Baumeister took the loss for Upper Moreland. In 4 1/3 innings, the right-hander gave up six runs on nine hits. She struck out five batters to no walks.

Jenna Sadowski came on in relief and allowed two runs on four hits in 1 2/3 innings. She struck out one batter to no walks.