Alert Cardinal O’Hara stays unbeaten in PCL with win over Lansdale Catholic

LANSDALE >> Alyssa Daly saw the errant throw and took off running.

Cardinal O’Hara’s senior third baseman didn’t stop until she had crossed home plate, her heads-up awareness and aggressive mentality turning another Lansdale Catholic mistake into a run Tuesday afternoon. The Lions traveled to LC determined to lock up the top seed for the PCL playoffs and did just that, capitalizing plenty on a Crusaders team that never seemed to find its footing.

O’Hara struck early and broke the game open midway through to claim a 10-4 victory over LC. The Lions remain undefeated in Catholic League play.

“We always work as a team and we wanted to really jump on them today,” Daly said. “They were trying to get the second seed, so we had to beat them to secure the first seed. We always pick each other up, so working well as a team is important.”

One of seven seniors in the Lions lineup, Daly said it’s all been about the PCL title this spring. O’Hara has never won one and this group, whether it’s the seniors or the underclassmen supporting them, have answered every challenge the league has thrown at them so far.

LC, the Catholic League runner-up last year, got in its own way quite a bit Tuesday and those mental and physical mistakes started to pile up. A first inning error on a ground ball helped put a runner in scoring position and by extension, allowed Allison Ahern’s base hit to drive in the game’s first run.

“The last four games, even the win against Hallahan, I don’t think we’ve played well,” LC coach Paul Suder said. “That comes back to haunt you when you make those kinds of mistakes, you put people on base and you don’t make them hit their way past you. We seem to be in a bit of a rut that way.”

The Crusaders did tie the game up in the bottom of the second when catcher Becca Tiley was able to slide in under a high throw on a fielder’s choice. But O’Hara responded with two runs in the top of the third.

Ahern had an RBI groundout and the second run scored via a miscue by the Crusaders on the bases.

The Lions broke the game open in the fourth inning, sending nine batters to the dish and plating five runs. Daly, who struck out her first time up but credited her teammates for picking her up, led off the frame with a single and later scored along with Julia Mirarchi on Maggie Loomis’ two-run triple.

“We feed off each other, if someone makes a play the rest of us want to continue it and even if we’re down, it’s just one at a time and pick each other up when we need to,” Daly said. “It’s a really good environment on this team and I love it.

“We’ve all wanted this the past four years and want to win as seniors. We feel like we deserve it. O’Hara has never won one and being the older players, we want to be the example.”

Loomis’ triple was a big play in the inning and, as Daly said, the Lions kept it going behind her. Shortstop Julia Kush, another senior, delivered a two-run single two batters later and in another display of aggressive and heads-up base-running, pounced on an LC error and ended up scoring on the hit for a three-run play.

“We really want to get ahead and we got so many runs there it made the rest of the game easier,” Daly said. “We just wanted to keep going. We knew (LC pitcher Mary Picozzi) is a good pitcher, especially with her change-up, but we just had to hit her.”

While the hits did the damage for O’Hara, it was the mistakes in the field that hurt LC the most. The more runners the Crusaders allowed to get on base, the more pressure they put on themselves.

LC showed some life in the home half of the fourth with three straight singles to start the frame, including an RBI knock by first baseman Kaitlyn Leshak, who led the Crusaders with three hits. A single by Jen Llewellyn and a Lions error allowed two more runs to cross, but O’Hara senior pitcher Jenna Smith got a ground ball to end the frame and strand the bases loaded.

Daly led off the fifth with a walk, later scoring on the LC error and sophomore Leah DiGiadomenico came home on an RBI single by Kush to put the Lions up 10-4. Kush had two hits, walked twice, reached on a fielder’s choice and posted three RBIs. Second baseman Grace Hussey scored three runs, Loomis had two hits, two runs and two RBIs and Daly scored twice while reaching base on a single and two walks.

O’Hara will try for an undefeated PCL regular season on Wednesday against Neumann-Goretti but the Lions will carry a target into the postseason as the No. 1 seed either way. Daly said it’s a pressure the Lions are welcoming because it’s one they’ve had before.

“We talked about it a lot yesterday and today that we just had to keep pushing through and chipping away all game,” Daly said. “At the beginning of the game, I didn’t do too well but my teammates picked me up, told me it didn’t matter and I’m really thankful for everyone being there for me and we all try to be there for each other.”

LC, which dropped a 3-2 game to Hatboro-Horsham on Monday night, is finished for the week and only has a nonleague game at North Penn next Monday before the league playoffs. While the undefeated Knights are a stiff test going into the postseason, Leshak is confident that if the Crusaders can get that rally-starting hit they’ve lacked the last few games, they can make a PCL run as they did last season.

“I don’t think we started with the same energy we usually do and hopefully we’ll come back with it next week for the playoffs,” Leshak said. “It was our Senior Night and everyone wanted to win and usually we’re a pretty contagious team, when one person starts hitting then everyone starts hitting, but it never really started off today.”

CARDINAL O’HARA 10, LANSDALE CATHOLIC 4
CARDINAL O’HARA 102 520 0 – 10 9 1
LANSDALE CATHOLIC 010 300 0 – 4 8 5
3B: CO – Maggie Loomis. 2B: LC – Kaitlyn Leshak, CO – Allison Ahern. Multiple hits: CO – Loomis 2-5, Julia Kush 2-3, Ahern 2-5; LC – Leshak 3-4, Becca Tiley 2-4.