Wellsboro wins first ever softball district title.
By: Chris Manning | Towanda Daily Review | May 29, 2015 | Photo courtesy Chris Manning
2015 NTL and District 4 News
TURBOTVILLE - The past few years Wellsboro softball had been building.
And on Thursday they got to see their product.
The Green Hornets used early offense and a stout defense to beat Milton 3-1 in the District IV, Class AA softball championship game.
"I'm just extremely happy for a group of young ladies who have worked hard for the last five or six years to get to this point," said Wellsboro coach Greg Carr. "It's great for our program, which is our first one. I'm so proud that they are the first ones and I can't be any more excited than I am right now."
"It feels really good knowing we worked so hard for this," shortstop Sarah Ingerick said. "And the season is still continuing and I still get to play with my senior sisters."
Alexa Singer was strong in the win, allowing just four hits and one walk while striking out two. The lone run was unearned.
"I don't think it's still set in yet," Singer said about the title. "It's really exciting. This is what we've been working for so it's great."
She had faith in her team behind her coming into the game.
"I was really confident," Singer said about her mindset. "I'm really confident in our team. I knew they had my back."
Wellsboro made the most of their opportunities, scoring two runs in the first inning and one run in the second. Milton scored a run in the third while threatening in the final three innings but the Hornets held them off.
"We just played our game," said Carr. "Other than a couple little errors they came through. Our pitcher did an awesome job. She didn't have many strikeouts but our defense was pretty stellar. I think that won the game for us."
Jenny Young, Alyssa Yungwirth, Ingerick, Paige Carr, Baylea Lehman and Sydney Tremper all had hits for the Hornets while Young, Yungwirth and Lehman scored. Carr had an RBI.
For Milton Kylie Brouse allowed six hits, one walk and one earned run while striking out nine.
In the first Young led off with a walk followed by Yungwirth reaching on a single. Two batters later an error off the bat of Singer allowed Young to score followed by Carr hitting Yungwirth home to make it 2-0.
"That was so helpful," remarked Singer. "That took a lot of weight off my back."
"It's huge to get the lead right off the bat," added Carr. "Especially when you can get two or threes runs. It calms your team down, it calms your pitcher down going in. We talked about that over the weekend, shut them down the first inning and get on top and see where we can go from there."
In the second Lehman reached base after being hit by a pitch. She would score on an error off the bat of Young to put the Hornets up 3-0.
They threatened again in the fifth as Ingerick reached on a single and got to second base but was stranded there. And in the sixth back to back singles by Tremper and Lehman would lead to runners on second and third but Milton got out of the inning as Young grounded out to shortstop.
Milton's lone run came off an error. Devin Heimbach, who went 2-for-3 on the day to lead the Black Panthers, reached on a single with one out.
Three batters later there were two outs with runners on first and second when a pop fly to the outfield was dropped, allowing Heimbach to score.
For the most part though Milton struggled to get base runners in the first half of the game.
"We've been playing great defense all season," said Singer. "It's really helpful to know that my defense has my back."
Milton would get runners to second and third in the fifth but three straight outs by Wellsboro kept it a 2-run lead. A 1-out double in the sixth put a Milton runner in scoring position but she was stranded on second.
Then in the seventh the Panthers got runners on first and second with one out and they had the momentum.
"I was definitely a little nervous with it being the last inning," Singer said about Milton's last gasp.
But Wellsboro's defense came through as a line shot hit at Lehman at third was caught and she quickly threw to Butters for the double play, ending the game and securing the first district softball title for the Hornets.
"It was awesome," Singer said about the double play. "I was just hoping something like that would happen and everyone was just kind of in awe."
And it seemed fitting for Wellsboro that they win their district title on a big defensive play.
"Today we sort of tightened down and that was really big for this game," said Ingerick. "It was big."
The Hornets had a lot of momentum coming into the game after pulling out a walk off win over the defending state champions Central Columbia.
"Like I told them yesterday at practice: 'You have as much reason being here to compete for this as the other team. You just have to go out and do it, play hard and see what happens,'" explained Carr. "I think that's what we did."
Wellsboro will now face Holy Redeemer on Monday at Wilkes University with a 2 p.m. start.
In the PIAA tournament the Hornets would like to get their bats going more.
"We've been hitting well but altogether as a team we haven't strung it together all on the same night," explained Singer. "Hopefully we can do that at states."
"We're just going to hit more and do the same thing we've always been doing," Ingerick added.
But in the meantime they're going to enjoy this win.
"The next couple days we're going to focus on this," remarked Carr. "And we'll just take it one game at a time, it's what we've done up to this point."
