Strong defense, timely hitting push Belle Vernon to WPIAL title
Belle Vernon’s pitcher Bailey Parshall, center, and her teammates celebrate their win over Yough in the 2017 WPIAL Class 4A Softball Championship at California University’s Lilley Field.
Belle Vernon’s pitcher Bailey Parshall led the Leopards to the WPIAL Class 4A Softball Championship over Yough last season.
Observer-Reporter
Because the coronavirus pandemic has shut down high school sports in Pennsylvania, it could be detrimental to the development of young umpires because they are missing out on valuable game experience.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter Belle VernonþÄôs pitcher Bailey Parshall ,center, hugs a teammate after beating Yough in the Class AAAA WPIAL softball championships at California University’s Lilley Field on Thursday, June 1, 2017.
CALIFORNIA – When Mekenzie Sokol strolls out to take her position in left field for Belle Vernon, she knows her day might be similar to that of the Maytag repairman of TV commercial fame: not a whole lot of work.
Sokol, backing the hard-throwing pitcher Bailey Parshall, has only recorded one fly ball out, which came in the Leopards 3-1 win over Mt. Pleasant in the WPIAL Class 4-A semifinals.
The second one, coming in the bottom of the sixth inning of Thursday’s WPIAL Championship game, might have been the most important putout Belle Vernon made all year.
But it wasn’t Sokol hauling in that out. She was at third base, taking the new spot following an injury.
Extending her arms above her head was freshman Natalie French, who hauled in the final out of the sixth inning to keep Yough at a distance and help Belle Vernon defeat its Section 2 rival, 4-1, to win the Class 4-A championship at California University’s Lilley Field Thursday.
“You always have to expect it, but I was nervous,” French said about making her varsity debut in left field. “I saw it coming, stuck my glove up and there it was.”
French’s unexpected grab was a portion of the solid defense played by Belle Vernon (19-1), which earned a first-round PIAA tournament matchup with Division 9 champion Punxsutawney at a site and time to be determined.
Parshall, after breezing through the first four innings without allowing a hit, surrendered a solo home run to left field on the first pitch of the fifth inning to Yough’s Olivia Miller, cutting the Leopards lead to 2-1.
Parshall then avoided giving up the lead after charging first baseman Kelsey Lynn fielded a suicide squeeze and threw to a covering Megan Christner on a close play that caused a collision. That out stranded runners at second and third.
“Whoever had the least errors was going to win,” Belle Vernon coach Tom Rodriguez said. “It’s pitching, defense and timely hitting that is what is going to win these games. All we worked on this week was defense. We scrimmaged two days ago and had six errors. I told them, ‘I hope you got it out of your system.'”
That timely hitting came through in the sixth inning when Parshall helped her own cause with a two-run double to center field to give the Leopards more insurance with a 4-1 lead.
“That’s usually what our team has been doing all year,” said Yough coach Dutch Harvey about his team’s knee-jerk offense. “It’s why I really wasn’t panicked. If we kept Belle Vernon under two runs, I thought we could come back.”
The Leopards scored what would be the game-winning run on a dropped fly ball by Yough (17-3) as French, the courtesy runner for Parshall, scored to put Belle Vernon ahead, 2-0, in the third inning.
“We made the errors and that was the difference in the game,” Harvey said. “You can’t misplay three balls in the outfield.”
The 4-1 lead didn’t have Rodriguez breathing any easier in the seventh inning as he reverted his thinking to two years ago when Belle Vernon trailed by that exact same score and rallied to defeat Yough, 5-4.
“When we get those runs right away, we are usually in good shape,” Rodriguez said. “It was in the back of my mind about them doing the same thing to us this year.”
However, Parshall didn’t allow Yough a comeback attempt as she retired the final three batters.
“As a whole team, we really did well in the field,” said Parshall, who struck out nine.
“We never lost our momentum and kept our heads up the whole time. I really think that’s what made the difference.”