DH Split With Seneca Valley For NA Slow-Pitch
The NA Lady Tigers after winning 3 of their last 4 games, find themselves 6-2 on the season and traveling to Cranberry Township to play the Seneca Valley Lady Raiders. Game one proved to be a nail biter with NA losing 6-5. The Tigers fell flat and left wondering what happened to the team from just one short week ago where everything seemed to come together. In a back and forth affair, the ladies fell short and ended the game with a meager 9 for 32 at the plate. Seventeen of the Lady Tiger outs were fly balls. The only bright spots of the game were senior Jess Blendinger who went 1 for 2 with 2 RBI’s and junior Lauren Randolph who was 2 for 3.
After a disappointing and poor performance in game one, NA looked to rebound. Game two was off to a slow start with the score tied at 2-2 after four innings. Seneca Valley scored two more in the top of the 5th to make the score 4-2. The Raiders of SV and Lady Tigers of NA both went scoreless in the sixth inning taking the same score of 4-2 into the top of the seventh. The Raiders scored 1 to go up 5-2 in the seventh inning and NA coming to the plate down three runs. The sun beginning to set on yet this another beautiful September day, the NA Lady Tigers seemed to be going down just as quickly. With poor performances in both the field and at the plate, the chances of winning were slim. Well, slim left the building and the Lady Tigers woke up to a roar of the bats of Emily Barbus, Alexis Kruth, Blendinger and Sammy McCoy to score 3 runs, tie the game and enter extra innings. In the top of the 8th, and SV at the plate, the Tigers found themselves down 8-5. The Raiders got a huge 2 out 3 run bases clearing double, by their stellar left fielder and 5th batter, Julianna. NA found themselves down once again by 3 runs entering the bottom of the 8th inning. A single by senior Brianna Wagner and walks to both Laura Puntil and Aly Stroyne loaded the bases and scored the international tie breaker runner (who started the inning on 2nd base) to find NA down 8-6. With no outs and all the pressure on NA’s next batter, in steps freshman Rachel Giger. The fabulous freshman, Giger roped the ball over the shortstop to knock in two runs and tie the game 8-8. The next two batters fly out and line out respectively. Two outs, game tied and up to the plate is sophomore Jordyn Lilienthal. Jordyn hit the ball to the back-hand of the shortstop for SV, after a bobble, and all the NA girls running full steam, found herself unable to throw the ball to anyone, all base runners safe and NA wins 9-8 in extra innings. The ladies proved that attitude, team work, and confidence goes a long way. Well done lady Tigers!