Lansdale Catholic rolls past Bishop McDevitt in 3 innings

CHELTENHAM >> The level of competition in the Philadelphia Catholic League may swing up and down, but the Lansdale Catholic softball team works to make sure that whoever the opponent is the Crusaders’ effort stays consistent.

“It is different to adjust to the different teams and the paces,” LC senior Emily Yost said. “But we try our best, we practice hard every day and we just try our best. We come out and play our game.”

Tuesday afternoon, LC traveled down to Bishop McDevitt and it was apparently very quickly how things were going to go in the PCL contest. With the Royal Lancers struggling to throw strikes, the Crusaders sent 18 batters to the plate in top of the first inning, 15 coming into the score.

LC added one more run in the third to finish with a 16-0 three-inning win to keep its perfect league mark intact.

“This kind of game we come out and we know it’s not going to be hard but we know that we come out and it’s basically mental over and over again,” Yost said.

The Crusaders (3-1, 3-0 league) racked up eight hits in the first and 11 in total but in such a lobsided win, one of LC coach Paul Suder’s concerns is maintaining timing at the plate, especially when returning faster pitching speeds.

“You can see it really affects your hitting,” Suder said. “You really have to wait, wait, wait and you get into a lot of bad habits on it, stuff like that. Good thing is we’re going to get two of them in a row (LC visits Neumann-Goretti 3:45 p.m. Thursday) so we’ll get two of them out of the way but it definitely affects you. And then you see somebody that throws hard and then it takes a few innings to adjust. Definitely not an easy thing.”

McDevitt, which came into Tuesday 1-0 in the PCL after a 26-6 win over West Catholic last Thursday, stayed upbeat throughout despite putting just two baserunners on — Adia Simon starting the bottom of the second with a walk while Sam Dever got hit by a pitch with one out in the third.

“This was actually very positive by this loss today,” Royal Lancers first-year coach  Chris Kushner said. “I don’t look at it as anything negative because last week when we played West Catholic we mercy-ruled them in three innings 26-6 and they had a problem pitching. Now we’re on the other end of the foot so they can see both ends as far as what it looks like to be the dominant team and also now what it’s like to be the receiving end and now what we have to work on.”

LC starting pitcher Jen Llewellyn did not give up a hit — only two Lancers put the ball into play — and finished with seven strikeouts.

After its trip to Neumann-Goretti Thursday, Lansdale Catholic caps its week hosting Central Bucks West for a non-league contest 3:45 p.m. Friday.

“I’ve always said we’ve always been a warm-weather team,” Suder said. “We play better in the warm weather and for some reason we’re just not a good cool weather or good-starting team. It seem like middle of the season is when we really start rolling. So, we’re looking forward to some warmer weather.”

Bishop McDevitt, looking to improve on last season’s 1-11 PCL record, hosts Bonner & Prendergast 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

“They’re harder on themselves than I am on them. But they’re a great group of girls, they listen, they’re enthusiastic,” Kushner said. “Mother on the other team just stopped me and said that she was impressed of how high their spirits were for losing for so bad and she wanted to say that it was really nice that they all come together.

Yost, Megan Burns and Claire Clauss all collected two hits for the Crusaders while Llewellyn had four RBIs and scored twice.

Burns led off the game by dropping a single into right. After four walks and two hit batters scored four runs, Yost had LC’s second hit — a two-RBI double to make it 6-0.

“It’s basically all about timing,” Yost said. “You come out and you know that they’re not going to pitch that well but it’s just about playing game and working with what you got.”

Burns’ second hit of the inning was a two-RBI double to center with back-to-back RBI singles from Clauss and Mary Picozzi extending the lead to 10-0.

Kaitlyn Leshak was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to plate the Crusaders’ 11th run. After a Casey Meenan RBI single, Llewellyn put LC up 15-0 by belting a three-RBI double to left.

“Most girls like to take a pitch, we’re pretty much in a situation like this is first good you get you want to swing at it,” Suder said. “You may not get two in a row.”

LC tacked on its last run in the third as Bridget Duffy’s RBI single to left scored Llewellyn.