Volpe’s pitching, 5 RBIs lead North Penn past Haverford, into District 1-6A semifinals

TOWAMENCIN >> In the circle and at the plate, North Penn’s Mady Volpe made it a tough afternoon for visiting Haverford.

The sophomore hit a pair of doubles and collected five RBIs while also striking out eight and limiting the seventh-seeded Fords to just a run as the No. 2 Knights rolled into District 1-6A softball semifinals with a 11-1 five-inning victory Friday.

“It feels really good especially when I get to pitch and I get to hit,” Volpe said. “I knew there were runners on base, I knew I just had to do my job.”

Volpe and Jamie Beer both finished 3-for-3 as North Penn (20-1) blew the quarterfinal open batting around in the bottom of the second inning, taking advantage of three Haverford errors in taking 6-0 lead.

The Fords broke through for a run in the fourth but the Knights responded with three in the bottom of the frame. Volpe made it a walk-off victory in the fifth with her bases-loaded, two-RBI single.

“She’s been hitting in practice and actually she’s not a bad hitter, it’s just that her total concentration for right now is on pitching,” said North Penn coach Rick Torresani of Volpe. “So she doesn’t really hit outside of her but when she’s on — she put one out the other day, too, for a home run (against Pennridge). Yeah, we’re going to keep her in the lineup, keep her hitting and take her off the base and have somebody run for her.”

Lizzy Stark went 2-for-3 while Carley DiGiuseppe was 2-for-4 as hitters 5-8 in the North Penn lineup — Beer, DiGiuseppe, Volpe and Stark — collected 10 of the team’s 12 hits as the Knights earned a PIAA berth for the second straight season.

“It feels amazing,” Beer said. “We’ve been working so hard for so long, like we’ve been working since September. It’s been our goal all year long, so it’s really nice to finally have the first step towards winning the goal.”

The Knights host third-seeded Pennsbury — which edged No. 6 Neshaminy 2-1 in eight innings — in the semifinals Tuesday. Haverford (17-5) visits Neshaminy Tuesday in district playbacks with the winner securing a spot in the state tournament.

“They’re a very good team and you make mistakes they capitalize on it and all, too,” said Ford coach Bob Newman of North Penn. “But we knew we had to play a pretty perfect game and we didn’t. We played with them earlier in the year, we thought we could hang with them. We knew we had to hang with them and we couldn’t.”

Haverford — which lost in the regular season to North Penn 4-3 on April 12 — had a chance to strike early when Ali Murphy led off the game with a double to left but the Knights right-hander worked out of the jam by striking out the next three batters.

“I just thought that’s just one hit, it’s not going to affect the whole game,” Volpe said. “I mean, with our hitting right now, how well we’re hitting, one run’s not going to affect anything.”

Volpe — who eclipsed 200 strikeouts on the season in the second-round win over Upper Darby Wednesday — gave up one earned run on five hits and did not allow a walk in the complete-game win Friday.

“Rise ball was working well,” she said. “I was working on getting it lower in the zone, not as high. So that was working really well. My changeup, I mixed in the changeup a lot.”

Haverford starting pitcher Emma Taylor took the loss, the left-hander giving up 11 runs — 10 earned — on 12 hits in 4 2/3 innings. She walked five, hit two batters and struck out two.

“A little nervous, I think,” said Newman of Taylor. “She was trying to spot the ball, I was telling her to rear back and let it go, kid. She’s a freshman, big time, she’s going to be really good for us for the next three years so I’m not worried about her at all.”

North Penn sent 12 batters to the plate in the bottom of the second, the first being Volpe, who doubled to center with her courtesy runner Gianna Costello scoring after a Lizzy Stark single and a Fords error. Sophia Collins drew a walk and as she stole second, an errant throw allowed Stark home to make it 2-0. Collins then scored due to an error after a Victoria Juckniewitz bunt.

“That’s what we talked about yesterday, if another team is going to make an error then we have to compound it by being aggressive on the basepaths and seeing if they make another one and another one,” Torresani said. “Don’t let up and keep forcing them to make plays and that’s what we did.”

Jordan Pietrzykoski’s single and Amanda Greaney getting hit by a pitch loaded the bases with no outs. The Fords got a force at home on Elia Namey’s grounder to third, but the Knights proceeded to plate three more runs on Beer’s walk, a Carley DiGiuseppe RBI infield single and a Volpe walk.

“We weren’t getting those big hits today which is OK,” Beer said. “Because everyone else in the lineup kind of picked up and did their part to come together as one. It was really nice.”

The Fords cut their deficit to 6-1 in the top of the fourth. Amber Moscoe led off with single to the left side of the infield then scored as Tess Smiley tripled into right center. Volpe, however, stranded Smiley at third with a fly out to right then back-to-back strikeouts.

The Knights responded with three runs in the bottom of the inning. Volpe brought home the first two with her one-out double up the middle that scored both Namey and Beer. Stark followed with an RBI single through the left side and advanced to second on an error on the play.

North Penn loaded the bases in the fifth after a Greaney one-out single and consecutive two-out base hits from Beer and DiGiuseppe. Volpe dropped a single over first base on the next at-bat to score a pair of runs and enact the 10-run mercy rule.

(2) North Penn 11, (7) Haverford 1
Haverford           000 10 —   1   5 4
North Penn        060 32 — 11 12 0
WP: Mady Volpe 5 IP 5 H 1 R 1 ER 0 BB 8 SO.
LP: Emma Taylor 4.2 IP 12 H 11 R 10 ER 5 BB 2 SO 2 HB.
2B: H-Ali Murphy; NP-Volpe 2; 3B: H-Tess Smiley.
Haverford: Smiley 1-2, RBI.
North Penn: Volpe 3-3, 5 RBI; Jamie Beer 3-3, RBI, 2 R; Gianna Costello 2 R; Carley DiGiuseppe 2-4, RBI; Holly Kopp 2 R; Elia Namey 2 R; Lizzy Stark 2-3, RBI, R.