Upper Moreland wins battle of bats with Cheltenham

CHELTENHAM >> Upper Moreland softball coach Scott Ludlow doesn’t pay much attention to records when his team takes on another Suburban One League American Conference squad.

All that matters to Ludlow is the knowledge everyone in the league can hit the ball. Also, at this point in the season, there are a lot of teams playing above what their records indicate.

Tuesday, the Golden Bears got the full range of that spectrum when they visited Cheltenham and came out on the winning side of a 15-9, back-and-forth slugfest that featured six lead changes.

“What I know is we’re always going to keep battling,” Ludlow said. “We’re not going to come off hanging our heads. We had some lulls there, made some mistakes on the basepaths and in the field today. One thing we did was hit up and down our lineup today. You win some 3-2, you win some 13-8, you have games on both ends.”

While the Panthers (5-11, 3-8 SOL American) lost, it was another step forward for a very young and inexperienced team. From the start of the season to now, Cheltenham has grown quite a bit and with just three seniors, is working for the future.

Tuesday’s game showed why. Despite sticking right with Upper Moreland (10-3, 7-3 SOL), the Panthers made seven errors that handed the Golden Bears runs and offensively, Cheltenham wasn’t able to cash in on a couple of prime scoring chances. But Panthers coach Ron Perlstein was not discouraged, not after his players showed so much fight.

“I think that we’ve made a lot of improvement,” Perlstein said. “Our pitching has gotten stronger, our infield play has gotten much stronger and we’re hitting the heck out of the ball. We battled these guys hit for hit up until the last two innings and even then, we got the bases loaded with two outs in the sixth. I’m proud of these girls because they have come far and we’re not finished yet.”

Upper Moreland took a 1-0 lead in the first only for Cheltenham to respond with three in the bottom half of the frame, a Veata Blair-Kraybill triple, Marissa Custer RBI groundout and error providing the runs. The second was one both teams would like back defensively with each side committing two errors that led to several runs.

The Bears exploded for six runs in the top half of the second, the big blow a two-out, three-run double from designated player Alison Creighton at the very end of the rally. Creighton was thrown out at third trying to leg it into a triple but she had still done the damage. Maura Casey and Allie Miller had RBI singles in the frame while Nicole Drummond drew a bases-loaded walk for the other scoring.

In a 7-5 loss to Abington on Monday, the Panthers had roared back from a 7-1 deficit and fell short. Tuesday, down 7-3, they came all the way back. After leadoff batter Maddie Gianelle reached on an error, she scored on a second error when a fly ball was dropped in the outfield. Erin Kuchler drew a walk to bring up sophomore Morgan Gianelle, Maddie’s younger sister.

Morgan Gianelle caught every bit of a pitch, launching it to left and getting it to roll to the fence running parallel to Rices Mill Road for a three-run home run that tied it up 7-7.

“You didn’t have to see that hit to know it was well-struck, as Harry (Kalas) used to say,” Perlstein said.

After Upper Moreland got out of the inning, Ludlow calmed his team down and told the players it was simply a five-inning game from that point. The Bears then took the lead back on an RBI double by Brianna Byard and held it until the bottom of the fifth.

Cheltenham got another big hit out of Blair-Kraybill with a two-run double and a 9-8 lead. Like the rest of the game, it didn’t last too long as Upper Moreland sent nine batters to the plate in the sixth, scoring five runs on five hits aided by two Cheltenham errors.

Miller, a senior third baseman, started the surge with an RBI single as the third batter up in the frame. The senior co-captain had three hits and scored three times in a good bounce back from a rough game Monday.

“She’s hit some balls hard into tough luck the last couple of games,” Ludlow said. “She’s been a leader on our team since she was a sophomore, is always solid down at third base and is always positive. It was nice to see her break out today, hit a couple balls hard that got through.”

Upper Moreland pitcher Amber O’Connor came up huge in the bottom of the sixth after she had loaded the bases with two outs. O’Connor got a swinging strikeout of Lara Eisensmidts to end the threat, then added an RBI single that scored a second run on an error in the seventh for the final margin.

The Bears are in the hunt for District 1-AAA seeding, so they’ll keep trying to build on the last two days while the Panthers have a different goal for the last four games of the season. They’ve made a lot of strides so far, but Perlstein isn’t ready to let them coast to the finish line.

“I don’t think we played to our potential today,” Perlstein said. “We want to still work, we want to still improve. We’ve got four games left and I think we can put it all together, play defensively well, hit like we have been hitting and put on some good performances. I want to finish even stronger.”