Penn State Fayette softball team wraps up final season
Penn State Fayette came up short in the USCAA softball playoffs, but the Roaring Lions’ final season was deemed a success.
That was thanks to an stunning run through the PSUAC tournament in DuBois to claim the program’s first ever conference championship.
Fayette, which went 3-11 in the conference during the regular season, wiped out the top three seeds on its unlikely postseason run with wins over Penn State Schuylkill, 5-1, Penn State Mont Alto, 5-1, and Penn State New Kensington, 12-4, before defeating Mont Alto again in the final 14-8.
That earned the Roaring Lions a trip back to DuBois for the USCAA tournament.
It’s a trip Fayette and coach Becky Howell relished, no matter what the outcome.
“Just to get there was such a major accomplishment for our players and our program,” Howell said before the national tournament.
The Roaring Lions (8-18-1) faced top-ranked Florida National in the first round of the USCAA tournament, falling by a 15-1 score in five innings on May 11. Fayette was limited to just two hits by winning pitcher Sophia White and reliever Ava Baronick.
Both Roaring Lions hits were by Haylee Speicher. Their lone run came in the fifth inning when Southmoreland graduate Kaylee Doppelheuer walked, took second an Albert Gallatin graduate Hayleigh Vance’s walk, advanced to third on Sidney Bergman’s ground out and scored on Speicher’s single.
Makenzee Kenney took the loss.
Fayette played Mont Alto for the third time in the postseason in its second game of the double-elimination tournament on May 12, but after two wins in the PSUAC playoffs the Roaring Lions dropped the third meeting, 4-1, to end its final season.
Kenney had two of Fayette’s five hits off winning pitcher Kira Weikert, including a double.
Doppelheuer against scored the Roaring Lions’ only run. She led off the sixth inning with a single, went to second on Vance’s ground out, and after Laurel Highlands graduate Julie Cooper reached on a error, went to third on Takiah Cheathon’s single where she scored on Firestone’s bases-loaded walk.
Cooper had Fayette’s only other hit.
Bergman suffered the loss but Kenney pitched well in relief with three scoreless innings, allowing three hits. and no walks with two strikeouts.