Lady Mikes moving on
CALIFORNIA – Car-michaels has been waiting for this for a long time. Recently snake-bitten during the postseason, the Lady Mikes jumped out to an early lead and never looked back in an 8-3 win over Fort Cherry Wednesday in the first round of the WPIAL girls Class A softball playoffs at California University of Pa.’s Lilly Field.
Shayleigh Busti scored twice and also drove in a pair of runs, and winning pitcher Cortney Newland struck out 11 as Carmichaels advanced to the quarterfinals, where it will face No. 4 seed Neshannock Monday at 2 p.m. at West Allegheny High School.
Wednesday’s game, the middle contest of a tripleheader at Lilly Field, started on time despite a pocket of wet weather that drenched the area for most of the morning. With Carmichaels leading 8-2, the game was delayed by rain for 56 minutes after the Lady Mikes were retired in the bottom of the sixth inning.
The victory was the Lady Mikes’ first postseason win in the last six years. A year ago, Carmichaels (15-2) missed the playoffs, and before that, the Lady Mikes lost their previous four playoff games by a combined five runs.
“A lot of the girls wanted to do this for Cortney,” said Carmichaels coach Dave Briggs. “Especially after not qualifying last year and losing by one run two years in a row before that. We lost of couple of games when she was a freshman and a sophomore that we could have won real easily.”
Newland (15-2) scattered seven hits and didn’t walk a batter. She retired Fort Cherry in order three times, and faced serious trouble in just two innings.
In the top of the second inning, Newland allowed two runs to score on wild pitches, and she gave up back-to-back singles to begin the top of the fourth, but retired the next three Lady Rangers to end the threat.
“She’s a four-year starter who has been around the block,” Briggs said. “Once she settled down after the first couple of innings, I thought she only got stronger as the game wore on. I thought she was really throwing well after we came back from the delay.”
Carmichaels’ Ashley Chernisky and Memry Jordan had two hits each, and Jen Weightman scored three runs.
With two outs in the bottom of the first inning, Busti doubled over the head of Fort Cherry right fielder Sarah McGraw and brought home Morgan Pratt and Weightman, who was running for Newland, to give the Lady Mikes a 2-0 lead.
Busti came all the way around to score when the throw into the infield was thrown past the third baseman and out of bounds.
After Fort Cherry’s Harley Davidson and Brittany Lauff scored on wild pitches to close the Lady Rangers’ deficit to 3-2, Carmichaels opened a 6-2 lead with three unearned runs in the bottom of the third inning.
Fort Cherry committed seven errors, leading to six unearned runs.
“We’re a young team,” said Lady Rangers coach Charlie Hoffman. “That’s the way this season has been all year. Our starting shortstop got hurt earlier this season, and we’ve had to shuffle our defense.”
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Weightman scored again on a throwing error, and Carmichaels’ final run came in the bottom of the fifth when Jordan reached on a bunt single and eventually scored on a another throwing error.
“My biggest concern was I worried about us being nervous,” Briggs said. “We’ve hit the ball and fielded it well all year. And I thought we ran the bases well today and were very aggressive.”