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Little Lions stun Mifflin County

State College is solid in district final

Sentinel photos by MATT STRICKER
State College’s Kayla Hawbaker (1) beats a throw to Mifflin County catcher Caitlyn Smith in the District 6 Class 6A softball championship game Wednesday at Penn State.

UNIVERSITY PARK — Heading into Wednesday night’s District 6 Class 6A softball championship game, Mifflin County had already put together arguably its best season in program history.

The team had tied the previous record of 18 wins from a year ago, and won its first Mid-Penn Conference championship.

The Huskies were looking to add onto the incredible season, but were denied by a young State College team at Penn State in a 6-3 loss to the Little Lions.

“You end your season one of two ways: Either with a tough loss or a state championship, and state championships don’t come that often,” Mifflin County coach Jack McCurdy said. “They hurt right now because of this. They wanted this win — we all wanted it. But when they sit back and think about the accomplishments they’ve had this year, it’s a great season.”

The Huskies ended the season with an 18-5 overall record.

All throughout the evening, Mifflin County couldn’t get anything going against Little Lions’ pitcher Emma Wolfe.

In six of the seven innings Wolfe did not allow a leadoff baserunner. The only exception came in the bottom of the fourth when Caitlyn Smith got her first of two hits in the game. In three of those innings, the Huskies made two quick outs, but only one ended 1-2-3.

That inning only took three pitches.

“I don’t if there’s a particular reason as to why we couldn’t get that one hit,” McCurdy said. “It just didn’t happen today. The one thing I will say about the team that I appreciate is they continue to fight. They believe we could have come back and won that game.”

Look no further than the Huskies’ last at-bats, which began down five on the scoreboard.

With one out in the bottom of the seventh, Hanna Kanagy worked a four pitch walk — Wolfe’s fourth free pass of the contest. Smith followed suit with her second single, and last hit ever wearing a Mifflin County uniform, to put runners on first and second.

The Little Lions’ were able to get a fielder’s choice to get Smith on a grounder by Hannah Fitzgerald before Maxie Johnson drove in both Kanagy and Fitzgerald on a double to deep center field.

The double came with two strikes and was the second two bagger for Johnson. She also drove in all three runs for the Huskies.

“I thought we were starting to turn momentum there late in the game,” McCurdy said. “You can feel them really pressing to make one more out.”

Unfortunately for Mifflin County, the Little Lions were able to get Ralie Goss to roll over on a 3-1 pitch to end the threat.

State College picked up 11 hits with four of them going for extra bases. What the box score won’t show is that the Little Lions were squaring up on Kanagy’s pitches from all over the zone — a lot of the times even away from the zone.

“She was making good pitches,” McCurdy said. “Those kids were hitting balls over their heads, they were going into the dirt and hitting them. I couldn’t figure it out, I mean she was making good pitches. I went out there and said ‘Hannah you’re making good pitches, they’re just doing an outstanding job of getting the barrel on those balls.'”

State College threatened early and often, sometimes taking Kanagy out of her groove.

In the second inning the Little Lions were able to get Kanagy to commit a cardinal sin in softball by walking Ashley Thomas to kick off the inning.

A couple of batters later, Mckenzie Shannon worked a one-out walk. Both runners advanced into scoring position on Morgan Arnold’s sacrifice bunt. They came around to score on what could have been the third out of the inning.

Instead, with State College’s No.9 hitter Andrea Kling bunting, Kanagy overthrew first baseman Ralie Goss allowing both runners to score.

Mifflin County couldn’t overcome that deficit despite Kanagy calming down and getting the next eight batters out.

State College put its best inning together in the fifth getting four hits including a triple and double before tacking on three runs to make it a 5-1 game.

It got one last run on a home run by Brandy Triebold who was pinch-hitting to kickoff the sixth. Had the ball not smacked off the scoreboard in left field, it could have traveled a distance.

Mifflin County scored its first run of the game in the bottom of the fourth when Johnson ripped her first double to score Smith.

Both teams combined left 18 runners on base.

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