May 21, 2018 4 min read

BALDWIN – It was as if there were two games played into one, a hitting clinic for the first part and a pitching duel over the second.

Not until Ashley Seamon laced a single to left field with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning could top-seeded West Allegheny finally exhale from a 4-3 victory over Trinity in a WPIAL Class 5A quarterfinal-round game at Baldwin High School Monday.

West Allegheny won its 13th game in a row and moved its record to 18-1. The Indians will play Connelsville, a 4-0 winner over Franklin Regional, in the semifinals.

Trinity ends the season with a 13-8 record and won six of its final nine games, including a 12-2 playoff win over Gateway.

“We’ve got a young team,” said Trinity head coach Shawn Gray. “We’ve got two seniors stepping out and we’re going to grow with (rest of) them.”

Through the first 3 1/2 innings, West Allegheny scored three times, pounded out eight hits and left six players on base. Trinity also scored three times, had seven hits and left the bases loaded twice.

“At the beginning of the game, I think everyone was a little tight,” said Gray. “Then everyone settled in and played the way we expected them to play.”

Trinity did not have a hit in the final three innings. West Allegheny managed three, all coming in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Taylor Cummings led off the inning by hitting a single to left. Mackenzie Partyka sent a soft line drive to center field, where Bailey Bell made a nice catch then caught Cummings off first base with a strong throw for a double play.

“That was a phenomenal play,” Gray said. “She caught the runner off first base and it swung the momentum back our way.”

But Britney Wilson singled to left field and pitcher Kylie Poland, who came on in the third inning for Trinity, walked Savannah Lewis to put runners on first and second and set up Seamon’s dramatics.

“We came out early, hit the ball but left the bases loaded,” said WA head coach Mindy McFate. “I don’t know if the pitchers got into a groove or the hitters tightened up because they realized the importance. But it was like two different situations.”

West Allegheny scored a run in each of the first three inning but it could have been worse. Trinity starter Reagan Perry got two deep flyouts to end the first two innings. Steele got a flyout to deep right to end the third.

Trinity cut the lead in half, 2-1, in the third when Bailey McCullough doubled to right and came around to score on a groundout by Marlaina Bozek.

Trinity tied the score, 3-3, in the top of the fourth on RBIs from Bell and Bozek.

Belle Vernon 3, Ambridge 0:

The playoff strategy for Belle Vernon’s softball team goes something like this:

“We have Bailey Parshall and you don’t.”

That’s been enough to rack up two wins so far in the WPIAL Class 4A quarterfinals, the latest a 3-0 victory over Ambridge in the opening game of the doubleheader at Baldwin.

Parshall, the fireballing left-handed pitcher who is headed to Penn State, tossed a no-hitter and got 16 of the possible 21 outs by strikeout.

“I wasn’t thinking about the no-hitter,” said Parshall, who believes this was her fifth no-hitter and first in the playoffs. “I was just thinking about winning. I think I threw pretty well. I got ahead in counts and threw strikes.”

Belle Vernon, now 19-3 and winner of 15 out of 16, plays top-seeded Mt. Pleasant, a 10-0 winner in five innings over Knoch, in the semifinals.

Ambridge, which has made the playoffs 16 of the last 19 years, ended the season with a 9-6 record.

Belle Vernon got all the runs it would need when it scored twice in the third inning. Casey Weightman hit a one-out single, and came home on a double by Jordan French. An error allowed French to score.

Belle Vernon made it 3-0 in the fourth when Alex Sokol singled, moved to second on a groundout and scored on an error.

“We scored three runs and our goal is to get four a game,” said BV head coach Tom Rodriguez.

Parshall went 0-for-3 at the plate but hit the ball hard each time.

“We knew we had to play a perfect game to win today,” said Ambridge head coach James Huwar. “There’s no doubt (Parshall) is the best pitcher we saw this year. Our kids fought hard and I’m proud of them.”