Canon-McMillan left stranded, upset in first round

WEXFORD – Get ’em on, get ’em around and get ’em in.
The catchphrase of how to score runs has been a simple one to execute all season for the Canon-McMillan High School softball team.
The Big Macs scored double-digit run totals in 10 games. They averaged more than 11 runs per game and hadn’t scored fewer than nine runs in more than a month.
But when second-seeded Canon-McMillan needed to produce runs the most Thursday evening in its playoff opener against Seneca Valley, the last 60 feet proved to be the most difficult.
With every scoring chance seeming to go awry, Canon-McMillan stranded 10 runners and struggled to find its typically potent offense at the most important times. As a result, the Big Macs were upset by seventh-seeded Seneca Valley, 8-4, in a WPIAL Class 6A quarterfinal game at North Allegheny High School.
“We couldn’t get them across,” said Canon-McMillan coach Michele Moeller. “It would have been nice to take a little pressure off. We left too many runners on base. There were too many times the bases were loaded and we either got one or no runs.”
The bases were loaded several times for the Big Macs but they only went 1-for-6 in those situations. They stranded six runners in the first three innings, leaving the bases loaded in the first and runners at second and third with one out in the third inning without scoring.
“We got out of jams a lot, especially the one in the first inning,” said Seneca Valley coach George Trew. “That kind of set the whole tone for us.”
It set a tone of frustration and angst for Canon-McMillan (12-5) that lasted until when clear skies turned to dusk as the final outs were recorded. The Big Macs trimmed the deficit to one run, 5-4, in the bottom of the sixth inning when Olivia Ulam crushed a two-run homer to center field.
Seneca Valley (15-5) spoiled nearly every hope of the Big Macs’ comeback with three runs in the seventh. Mackenzie Baker flared an opposite-field single into right to score Julia Ehrman, who led off the inning with a double. Karli Hacker then homered to right field for two more runs, extending the lead to 8-4.
“It’s really deflating to be down one run and all the sudden boom, boom, boom,” Moeller said. “It was such a tight game up until then. I thought we still had a shot if it was 5-4 coming into our final at-bat.”
The Raiders first took the lead with three runs in the third inning. Baker opened scoring with an infield single, Hacker singled to score another run and a groundout pushed another across for a 3-0 advantage.
Baker and Hacker, Seneca Valley’s three and four hitters, combined for five hits and six RBI.
“We came through with the bats today,” Krew said. “We hit the ball very well. Some of our outs were solid contact.”
The Big Macs made three outs at the home plate, two on ground balls back to Seneca Valley pitcher Claire Zimmerman and another Jocelyn McNany.
C-M’s best opportunity to put a dent into its deficit came when it had the bases loaded and no outs in the fifth inning. After a 15-minute delay to fix the circle in the middle of the inning, the Big Macs could only scrape across one run on an Elli Kotar infield single, cutting the Raiders’ lead to 4-2.
“It’s momentum,” Moeller said. “You score runs early and it takes a little bit of the momentum instead of having to fight back the whole time. You have a little bit more of a comfort zone. I hate using the young word but we still made some rookie mistakes. We still could have survived some of those if we got some runs across early.”