Briggs, C-H charge past OLSH
IMPERIAL – Chartiers-Houston senior Kayla Briggs laced the softball into the right-field corner and immediately began chasing teammates Kassie Kesneck and Sabrina Stankus around the bases.
Briggs hit third base and charged toward home, even though the ball had reached the cutoff by that point, making a diving slide at the plate, where she was tagged out by Our Lady of Sacred Heart catcher Sophia Worrall.
It was one of the few mistakes for Briggs and the Bucs on this day and really didn’t matter, anyway, as Kesneck and Stankus scored the final two runs in a 10-0 five-inning Chartiers-Houston victory Tuesday over OLSH at West Allegheny High School in the opening round of the WPIAL Class AA softball playoffs.
“I looked up and saw coach waiving me on, so I just kept going,” said Briggs, who had three hits, including the triple, scored twice and drove in three runs.
And when Briggs wasn’t hurting OLSH (8-7), with her bat, she was doing it with her arm. Briggs allowed just two baserunners – one via a walk, the other on an error – throwing a no-hitter with six strikeouts.
Even when the Chargers put the ball in play, the balls weren’t hit particularly sharply as Briggs mixed her pitches, keeping the OLSH hitters off balance.
“I haven’t been throwing as good as I should, but I’ve been practicing,” said Briggs. “I’ve just been working hard.”
You’d be hard-pressed to convince any of the Bucs’ opponents this season that Briggs has been struggling on the mound. The two-time defending WPIAL Class A champions made the move up to Class AA this season and improved their record to 17-0 with Tuesday’s victory.
Up next in the quarterfinals is Mohawk, a 7-0 winner Tuesday over Brentwood.
That game will be next Monday or Tuesday at a site and time to be determined, giving the Bucs and everyone else in Class AA another week off before playing.
“I don’t really care what class we’re in,” said Chartiers-Houston coach Tricia Alderson. “I’m just glad we get to keep playing. You never get to play enough games. I think other people are talking about that more than we are. We just play who we’re supposed to play.”
The Bucs showed little rust from a week off from competition as Briggs lined the first pitch she saw in the bottom of the first inning up the middle for a single. Piper McLaughlin laid down a sacrifice bunt on the first pitch she saw and Briggs motored all the way to third base on the play. Following a Toni Spossey groundout to the pitcher on the first pitch of her at-bat, Haley Sutton stroked a single up the middle on the first offering she saw to score Briggs and give the Bucs the only run they’d need.
Chartiers-Houston tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the second, with Kraushaar singling and scoring on a Kesneck single. Kesneck advanced to second on the throw home, drawing a throw that sailed into the outfield, allowing her to score all the way from second.
After adding another run in the bottom of the third to take a 4-0 lead, Kesneck led off the bottom of the fourth with a single, later scoring on a Briggs shot up the middle that made it 5-0. Briggs and McLaughlin, who had reached on an error, then scored on a two-run single to left by Sutton, making it 7-0.
Kraushaar got the Bucs started in the bottom of the fifth with a triple down the left field line, scoring on a sacrifice fly by Samantha Elliott to make it 8-0. Kesneck and Stankus then had back-to-back one-out singles to set the stage for Briggs to end it.
“She did great all the way around,” Alderson said of Briggs. “She pitched well. I thought we played pretty good defense overall and came away with the win.”
The Bucs pounded out 12 hits in the game against OLSH lefty starter Emily Duerr, including three each by Briggs and Kesneck, while Kraushaar had two. Sutton, meanwhile, drove in three runs from the cleanup spot.