SOFTBALL: North Penn blanks Boyertown to clinch state berth

TOWAMENCIN — Steady, unflappable Bella.

Inning after inning, North Penn senior righthander Bella Nunn kept putting up zeros.

Strikeouts and zeros.

“Again, Bella showed who she is,” North Penn coach Rick Torresani said. “A lot of people don’t realize how much we appreciate her, and they don’t realize how good she actually is.”

Nunn struck out 12 Boyertown batters while allowing just two hits — and her only walk was intentional — as No. 4 North Penn shut out the 12th-seeded Bears 8-0 in the District 1-6A quarterfinals Friday at North Penn High School, seizing a state berth for the reigning state champion Knights.

North Penn will face top-seeded Downingtown West in Tuesday’s semis.

Boyertown heads into the playback bracket against No. 8 Perkiomen Valley.

North Penn scratched across a run in the bottom of the third to break a scoreless tie, when Sophia Orth singled home Gabby Battavio, who had walked and advanced. But the Knights broke the game open in a big fourth inning, capped by a grand slam over the center-field fence by Liv Stevens.

In the sixth, Orth added a two-run homer to center.

“I knew that we really needed the runs, so I was just like, ‘Relax, do my best,’” Stevens said of her giant blast, which came off of Bears reliever Kyra Neiswender, who entered with the bases loaded and nobody out in the fourth to replace starter Ella Hurter.

“I think it was a curveball, 2-2,” Stevens said. “I knew it was gone. I felt it.

“I just want to support Bella as much as I can,” she said. “She was throwing an amazing game.”

Doubles by Lindsay Mathias and Reilynn Carey, in the fourth and fifth innings, respectively, were the only hits by the Bears.

“We had some (injury) issues and had to make some substitutions,” Boyertown coach Kim Musselman said. “But, really, we just didn’t play our game. We certainly didn’t hit (Nunn) at all. We didn’t make adjustments at the plate. Of her 12 strikeouts, I think seven of them were looking.

“You’re not going to win a game if you have 12 strikeouts like that,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ve watched ‘Ted Lasso,’ but we tell them, ‘You have to be a goldfish and forget this game,’ because we’re still alive on Tuesday. Focus on Tuesday and play our game.”

In the North Penn fourth, prior to Stevens’s grand slam, Gianna Cimino worked a bases-loaded walk to bring in the Knights’ second run, making it 2-0.

Casey Sokol walked in the bottom of the sixth to set up Orth’s two-run bomb that accounted for the final margin.

“In a district game or a state game, you have to go up with a good approach at the plate, that’s the key,” Torresani said. “These teams are good. They’re here for a reason. When they do make a mistake, somebody’s got to go up there and hit the ball or take a walk or steal or squeeze bunt, or whatever it takes.

“And then, when they changed their pitcher, Liv came through,” he said. “She got the big hit.

“The seniors are like 99-6,” Torresani said. “They’ve been through the big games. And they know that pressure in the big games can kill you. They’re coming out knowing that they’re good, and they’re just so confident.”

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North Penn 8, Boyertown 0

Boyertown      000      000      0          —        0          2          0
North Penn      001      502      x          —        8          6          0

WP: Bella Nunn
LP: Ella Hurter

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Follow Christiaan DeFranco on X at @the_defranc.