Mitchell, Klinefelter deliver clutch hits in sixth to seal Lady Eagles’ second title in four years
Walt Moody
SHIPPENSBURG — You don’t see many job interviews during a state championship softball game, but Bald Eagle Area coach Dave Breon needed to get some answers.
CDT/Nabil K. Mark
BEA pitcher Megan Shaw hugs Head Coach Dave Breon after the game. Bald Eagle beat Brandywine Heights 2-0 for the PIAA AA Softball Championship June 12, 2009. CDT/Nabil K. Mark
So with the score tied and his best baserunner Taylor Parsons on at first with one out in the top of sixth inning against B r a n d y - wine Heights, Br eon called Lily
Glunt and Jasa Mitchell, his next two hitters, down for a question- and-answer session in front of the coaches’ box.
First he asked Glunt whether she could get down a bunt to move Parsons into scoring position. “She said, ‘I’ll get her over. I’ll do my job,’” Breon said.
Then Breon turned to Mitchell, who was hitless in two at-bats against Lady Bullets ace Alyssa Fegely. “I looked right at Jasa and said, ‘If Lily does her job are you going to do your job because we’ve got to get her in?’ She said, ‘I’ll do my job, coach.’”
They were jobs well done.
After Glunt’s sacrifice, Mitchell’s RBI bloop single scored Parsons as the Lady Eagles captured their second PIAA crown in four years with a 2-0 triumph at Shippensburg University’s Robb Field.
Brooke Klinefelter added an RBI single later in the inning and Megan Shaw pitched a two-hit gem as BEA (24-3) took home gold a year after finishing as the PIAA runner-up.
“This means a lot,” said Mitchell. “We worked so hard over the winter and everybody just wanted to come out and play our best game today. We played great defense behind Megan and Megan pitched a great game.”
In an outstanding pitcher’s duel, the contest came down to BEA taking advantage of an opportunity and the Bullets (27-1) failing on one against Shaw.
Brandywine Heights had the first big opportunity in the bottom of the fifth. An error and the Bullets’ first hit, a slap to the vacated shortstop hole after Chelsea Trewella faked a bunt, put two runners on base. And after a strikeout, another error loaded the bases with one out.
The situation called for another meeting with Klinefelter leading. “I just kept telling everybody, ‘Just relax, relax. We’ve been here before,’” the senior said. “ I knew that Megan would get us through. Megan was throwing a great game. Little things happened but I knew we would get out of it.”
Shaw did just that. She forced Jill Guldin to grounder to third baseman Glunt, who threw home to force a runner. She then got Amanda Shoemaker on a soft liner that shortstop Cortney Switzer left her feet to snare.
“Brooke came out and we all just talked and realized we needed and calm down, make the routine plays and get the easy outs,” Shaw said. “That’s what we did.”
Breon said he could feel the momentum shift after Shaw worked out of the jam. “When that happened, I could sense it,” he said. “I could sense that something was going to happen. With them getting out of such a big inning and then us coming in, I think that fueled us to get something done.”
With one out, Parsons started BEA’s big inning. After popping out twice against Fegely, she smoked a 1-0 pitch through the middle for a single, just her team’s third hit of the game.
“I was dipping a lot the first two times up,” Parsons said. “She was jamming me a little bit. She gave me one inside and pretty much down the middle.”
That prompted Breon, whose team was more known for its home-run power, to play small ball.
“We knew runs were going to be at a premium and I made a decision late in the game that if we got a runner on even with one out that we were probably going to bunt her over and hope that we could get a base hit to score,” he said.
It prompted the meeting with Glunt and Mitchell, the No. 2 and 3 hitters in the BEA order.
Glunt followed through with a perfect sacrifice down the first base line, moving Parsons to second.
That brought up Mitchell, who had failed last season to get a runner home from third with less than two outs in the bottom of the seventh of BEA’s 3-2 title loss to Loyal-sock in eight innings.
After taking a strike, Mitchell fought off an inside pitch that center fielder Jenn Dalickas, respecting Mitchell’s home run power, had no chance to make the catch. Parsons easily raced home to score.
“I looked back when I was on second base and I saw the outfielders playing back so I knew that any bloopers I was going,” Parsons said. “Once she hit it, I knew it was in and the crowd was cheering. I knew we had a run.”
“I stepped back and took a deep breath after that first strike and put it in a hole,” Mitchell said. “Oh my God, I was so excited.”
Mitchell was touched by Breon’s belief in her. “I knew he has confidence in me, but for him to have that much confidence in me really makes me happy,” she said.
Breon said the junior is not the same player who failed in the clutch in last season’s title game.
“Last year, she came up short and locked up for us,” Breon said. “This year, she came with a whole different attitude to this game. ... She had a different mindset than she did a year ago. That’s what a year of experience of being in the states will do for you.”
Mitchell took second on Dalickas’ throw home and wasn’t there for long as Klinefelter scorched the next pitch into center field. Mitchell scored easily as Dalickas bobbled the ball slightly.
“At first I was like, ‘Ooh, that might have came off the bat a little too hard,’” said Klinefelter of her single. “(Jasa) has the wheels and she got in there.”
The big hits from Mitchell and Klinefelter were the final of many for the No. 3 and 4 hitters in the postseason.
“They’ve come up clutch in all of our games and through the postseason,” Shaw said. “They’ve done great. For them to come up big, that’s just what they do.”
What Shaw does is frustrate hitters and she was able to do that again, even though she had trouble discerning the strike zone early. She uncharacteristically walked two runners in the first two innings, but both were erased on double plays.
“I thought there were a couple of pitches I had, but I just had to work through it,” Shaw said. “That’s what you’ve got to do being a pitcher is get used to umpires.”
“She’ll give a little facial expression like, ‘Are you kidding me? You seriously didn’t just call that?,’” Klinefelter said of Shaw’s frustration with calls. “Other than that, she just works herself out of it.”
Shaw gave up a two-out triple to Dalickas in the sixth. She needed just five pitches to close out Brandywine Heights in the seventh, getting a strikeout and two grounders to Switzer, who played a flawless game.
Shaw, who struck out four and walked two, shut down a lineup that had seven players batting .348 or above entering the contest.
“She’s a good pitcher,” Brandywine coach Don Roach said of Shaw. “There’s no doubt about that. We did put the ball in play, but we didn’t crush it the way we normally do. She was a fine pitcher. She earned the win today.”
Fegely, who lost 11-6 to Philipsburg-Osceola in the 2007 title game, allowed five hits, struck out seven and did not walk a batter.
“She threw well enough to win,” Roach said of Fegely, who finished 97-8 for her career. “There was no offense to help her.
“... We had our opportunities a couple of times to break stuff open or to get some runs,” he added. “We just didn’t capitalize when we needed to. They capitalized twice and got their runs. End of story.”
BEA also beat Brandywine Heights in the 2005 final after finishing second the previous season.
“It feels great,” Klinefelter said. “There aren’t even words to describe the feeling that all of us have right now. We’re all so happy and overwhelmed with it. We’re so glad we came out with the gold this year. It’s the best feeling anyone could ever experience.”
In Print
@Nyx.CommentBody@