North Penn homers twice, Volpe shuts out Pennsbury in District 1-6A 5th place game
FAIRLESS HILLS >> At this point of the high school softball season it’s not a matter of how good you are, but rather how well you play.
On this front it was all North Penn on Thursday afternoon as the Lansdale team cruised past Pennsbury, 6-0, in the fifth/sixth place game in the PIAA District 1 Class 6A Tournament.
By finishing fifth, North Penn (22-2) advanced to play on Monday in the first round of the states against the winner of the District 11 title game, which was to have been contested between Whitehall and Northampton on Thursday night.
As for Pennsbury (21-3), it will play on Monday against Warwick, which beat Chambersburg, 10-2, in the District 3 championship game.
The fact it finished sixth might not be a bad thing for Pennsbury because some people think it actually resulted in a better state tournament bracket draw. But as the District 1 tourney showed in a year in which none of the top three seeds even reached the semifinals, predicting how any of this might play out can be a fruitless endeavor.
The biggest star of North Penn’s impressive showing against the Falcons was pitcher Mady Volpe. When the two teams met during the regular-season, Pennsbury prevailed, 4-3, behind a three-run homer by Rowan Mulholland.
As a result, Volpe arrived at Pennsbury with a new game plan and it worked to perfection as she limited the Falcons to five singles and struck out a whopping 13 batters. Many of those strikeouts were on a very effective change-up that had Pennsbury swinging at air well before the ball even arrived at the plate.
“I wanted to try something different to get them off balance,” said Volpe. “That pitch (the change-up) was really on today. We just wanted to play our game and have fun.”
The fun began right away when Sarah Sabocsik homered off Ainsley McClure in the first inning with a shot over the right field fence. McClure came back to get through the second unscathed, but then all heck broke loose in a four-run third.
Batting nearly .600 on the year, Julia Shearer got the uprising started with a double. Following a walk to Sabocsik, Annabelle Smink drove in the first run of the inning on an RBI single.
With the way Volpe was pitching, what followed pretty much ended the game right there. Namely, a towering three-run home run off the screen of the left field foul pole by Gianna Cimino.
Just like that the score was 5-0 and it wasn’t long before both teams could start thinking about the state tournament.
“We are really excited about it (states),” said Volpe, who also had two of her team’s six hits and drove in the final run with a single in the fifth off reliever Quinn McGonnigle.
“We were disappointed last week (by a quarterfinal round loss to Haverford), but we were able to bounce back. We’ve got a clean slate now.”
As does Pennsbury, which got two hits from Mulholland and a strong defensive game by shortstop Caitlyn Martell on a day in which very little else went right.
“She (Volpe) pitched a great game,” said Pennsbury coach Frank McSherry. “And they really brought their sticks. They were swinging the bats. Give North Penn all the credit. They were the better team today,”
Although neither Pennsbury nor North Penn finished in the top four of their district, both have the type of teams capable of mounting a deep state tournament run.
“Everyone is tough (in the state tourney),” said McSherry, who has won over 700 games and five state titles. “You just have to play well and make things happen, which we didn’t do today.”
NORTH PENN 6, PENNSBURY 0
North Penn (22-2) 104 010 0 — 6 6 0
Pennsbury (21-3) 000 000 0 — 0 5 0
WP-Volpe. LP-McClure. 2B-Shearer (NP). HR-Sabocsik (NP), Cimino (NP). RBIs: Sabocsik, Smink, Cimino 3, Volpe.
