Banner season comes to a close for Conestoga

ALLENTOWN – In round one of the PIAA 6A Softball Playoffs, Conestoga made a very tough challenge even more difficult with a few loose plays in the field and on the base paths.

Against District 11 power Parkland on Monday at Allentown’s Patriots Park, the Pioneers committed four errors and ran themselves out of a few scoring chances, which certainly didn’t help in a convincing 8-0 setback. But afterwards, head coach Pete Ricci preferred to look back on a season that included two firsts for the program in a dozen years: a Central League title and a berth in the state tournament.

“I can’t be any prouder of my group,” Ricci said. “Somebody asked me what kind of team we have. I said, ‘I don’t know. We never get frazzled and always seem to come back.’

“And I was expecting that (Monday). We just kind of ran out of miracles, maybe.”

Conestoga had to play near perfectly to have a chance against the District 11 champs, and a program that has won five states titles all-time, including two since 2009. And to make matters even more difficult, Parkland’s lanky starter Kelly Dulaney is a premier pitcher.

“We knew that (Dulaney) was one of the best pitchers in Pennsylvania and we knew it would be tough, but we gave it our all,” said ’Stoga infielder Claire Overton.

“We knew heading in that Parkland was starting eight seniors and that their pitcher was very good,” Ricci added. “We thought if we could tighten it up defensively we could hang for a bit.”

The Pioneers season ends at 20-4 overall. Conestoga dropped two of its final nine outings, but the two losses came to Parkland and Downingtown West, the District 1 champs.

“We’ve made great strides, winning 39 games the last two seasons,” Ricci said. “We have a great group of kids coming up who’ve bought in. We think this is going to be the standard for us moving forward.”

Already down 1-0, the Pioneers surrendered three more on a second inning rally that began with an unfortunate throwing error. With a runner on second base, ’Stoga shortstop Olivia Cepielik fielded a routine grounder, but her throw to third hit the base runner, who then scored.

A misplayed bunt, a fielder’s choice and a bunt single proceeded to loaded the bases, and the Trojan’s Kylie Hlay delivered a two-run single off starter Lauren Lofland. In all, Parkland had just two hits but sent eight batters to the plate.

“We started the season with some errors but then throughout the season we really cut down on them,” Overton reported. “It just wasn’t our game today.”

In the fifth, however, Parkland strung together four hits to score four more times to take total command, 8-0.

Offensively, the Pioneers managed just five hits against Dulaney, but they did have a few scoring chances, particularly in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.

In the fourth and sixth, Conestoga failed to score despite having two runners on and just one out. The sixth ended with interference called on a ’Stoga runner. In the fifth, back-to-back hits with two out was sabotaged by bad base running when the lead runner was caught between second and third.

“That was just somebody being aggressive,” Ricci said.

“Throughout the season, we’ve had several big rallies,” said Overton, who went 2-for-3 to pace Conestoga. “It was just a matter of getting the timely hits and we that didn’t happen.”

The top of the Pioneers’ lineup accounted for four of the hits. But the bottom six batters were a combined 1-for-18. Overall, luck just wasn’t on ’Stoga’s side.

“Heck, on defense we hit two base runners with the ball, so that tells you the kind of day we had,” Ricci pointed out. “A lot of things went against us, but all year we’ve overcome stuff like that. Tonight, it was just too many.”

The Trojans (21-3 overall) advance to the quarterfinals to face the St. Hubert’s-Spring-Ford winner on Thursday. Conestoga is finished playing, but is already looking back fondly on a season that featured the first league crown and state appearance since 2007.

“We’ve done a lot of good things. It started last season and then this group kept it going,” Ricci said.

“You never want the end to come this early, but when it does, you want to think of all the great things we did.”

Parkland 8, Conestoga 0

Conestoga                            000 000 0

Parkland                               130 040 x — 8

2B – Overton (C), Polash (P).  

WP – Dulaney. LP – Lofland.