May 13, 2018 4 min read

When Belle Vernon starting pitcher Bailey Parshall takes the circle for the Leopards, they have an opportunity to win.

Belle Vernon High School softball coach Tom Rodriguez knows it. The stumped opponents in Parshall’s 33 career shutouts know it. And maybe most important, Parshall knows it.

But what opponents also know is if they can scrape a few runs against the hard-throwing Penn State recruit, it can result in a win.

For as good as Parshall has been – especially this season with 15 wins, a 0.38 ERA and 230 strikeouts – whether Belle Vernon repeats as WPIAL Class 4A champions will depend on its lineup following suit beginning with its first-round game against Uniontown at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Latrobe High School.

“Bailey has God-given talents that she has honed over the last four years,” said Rodriguez. “She is a once-in-a-lifetime for a coach. If we get four runs, we are in good shape. Even if we get one or two, it’s a big help. We have to be able to help her out.”

And while a 17-3 record for the fourth-seeded Leopards doesn’t indicate offensive struggles, it might be what keeps them from a second straight championship.

In Belle Vernon’s 18 games played this season – the Leopards won a pair of forfeits against Carrick because of a lack of players – it only managed to score 3.66 runs per game, the fourth lowest of teams to qualify for the playoffs in Class 4A. The only three teams to score fewer runs were from Section 1, Uniontown (2.85), Highlands (3.0) and Derry (3.15). All qualified for the playoffs via the tiebreaker rules despite only having 11 combined wins.

“Pitching is No. 1. Defense is No. 2. But if you don’t have timely hitting, you are going to struggle,” Rodriguez said. “Our hitting is way down from last year. We were at about a .335 (team batting average) and this year are hitting around .265. That’s 70 points. We lost our first two batters in the order from last year, Megan Christner and Lexi Church, and don’t have a lot of team speed.”

The Leopards are 2-3 this season when Parshall has allowed opponents to score at least two runs. In the four games against Yough and Elizabeth Forward, the other top teams in Section 2, the Leopards only scored three runs. They’ve also failed to score more than five runs in 14 of their 18 played games.

The offensive struggles for Belle Vernon are partially a result of teams simply taking the bat out of Parshall’s hands. She has been walked a team-high 18 times, including seven combined intentional walks against Yough.

Cougars’ coach Dutch Harvey didn’t shy away from letting that strategy be known after a 2-0 win over Belle Vernon in mid April.

“She will never hit against us again,” Harvey said. “She will never swing a bat against us again and it doesn’t matter if the bases are loaded. She is that good, and I won’t let her beat us at the plate.”

Rodriguez has tried to counteract the hesitancy of other opponents to pitch to Parshall, who is hitting .480 with three home runs. Typically hitting behind Parshall’s three spot in the lineup are Sophie Godzak, who is hitting .356, and Kourtney Gavatorta, who consistently makes contact with only three strikeouts this season.

“I’ve tried to stress to our players that they need to make other teams pay for that,” Rodriguez said. “Our first two hitters in our lineup, Megan Christner and Lexie Church, graduated. They both hit over .400. We are putting the bat on the ball but sometimes are just hitting it right at the other team. It might only be by a couple inches but we need those hits to make it anywhere.”