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McConnell, Barnyak help Mikes top West Greene, reach another WPIAL final
McMURRAY – Bailey Barnyak’s powerful right arm and Carys McConnell’s potent bat are sending Carmichaels back to the WPIAL Class A softball finals.
And two big innings late Thursday helped provide a little insurance.
Barnyak fired a two-hit shutout and McConnell smacked a key two-run homer, leading Carmichaels to a 9-0 victory over section rival West Greene in the WPIAL Class A semifinals played at the Pleasant Valley Elementary School field.
Carmichaels (17-4) will return to the WPIAL championship game next week at Penn West California and the opponent will be familiar. The Mikes will play top-seeded Union. Last year, Union beat Carmichaels 3-0 in the title game.
“We’re a different team and so is Union,” said Carmichaels coach Dave Briggs.
What hasn’t changed is Carmichael’s reliance on Barnyak and McConnell. They have been the program’s mainstays for four years.
Against West Greene (13-8), McConnell provided the key play of the game. She hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning that gave Carmichaels a 2-0 lead and seemed to break the Mikes out of an offensive funk. They won their quarterfinal game, 1-0.
“Carys provided the big spark,” Briggs said. “She’s phenomenal. And Bailey was, well, Bailey.”
The home run was all the offense Barnyak needed. She struck out 13 and walked three, and retired 10 of the last 12 West Greene batters.
“She went over 800 strikeouts for her career this year, and it seems like she had 750 of those against us,” said West Greene coach Bill Simms.
It was the third win for Carmichaels over West Greene. The Mikes won 10-0 in Carmichaels but the rematch in Rogersville saw the Mikes slip past the Lady Pioneers, 3-1.
“We wanted to treat this game like an NHL playoff game. The first goal in those games is important,” Simms said. “We felt like the first run in this one would be big, too.”
West Greene almost scored that first run in the top of the first inning. The Pioneers left Madelyn Roberts at third base after she reached on an error to start the game.
“Bailey getting out of that first inning was big,” Briggs said.
Barnyak also used her bat to help Carmichaels. She went 3-for-4 and drove in a run.
“Her bat has been very good for four years, but especially this season,” Briggs said. “She has always been good at the plate, but not to the level of this year.”
Carmichaels took advantage of walks to Giana Colarusso and Avery Voithofer to start the fifth inning and it turned into a four-run outburst. An error on a throw to home plate allowed one run to score, Kelsey Machesky had an RBI single and Joselyn Carter made it 6-0 with a two-run single to right field.
The Mikes scored three more in the sixth on Barnyak’s RBI single that brought in Ke’Lani Chun, an RBI triple by McConnell and a run-scoring groundout by Machesky.
McConnell went 2-for-3 with three RBIs.
“Carys McConnell, everybody told me she was in a slump,” Simms said. “All she does is hit, hit, hit. At this point in the season, you can’t pitch around everybody.”
West Greene will play section foe Jefferson-Morgan in a third-place game next week. The winner advances to the PIAA playoffs while the loser will have its season end. The Lady Pioneers swept the Rockets in two regular-season meetings.