BALD EAGLE AREA SOFTBALL: CHAMPIONSHIP RECAP

A golden year

Lady Eagles’ determination leads them to second title

Walt Moody

It’s one thing to say you’re going to equal the accomplishments of the best team in school history, it’s another thing to pull it off.

CDT file photo/Nabil K. Mark

Bald Eagle Area’s Megan Shaw, left, and Cortney Switzer, center, celebrate with team members after the Lady Eagles’ 2-0 win over Brandywine Heights for the PIAA Class AA title last Friday in Shippensburg.

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With its 2-0 win against Brandywine Heights a week ago, the Bald Eagle Area softball team completed a quest to match the 2005 squad in winning the PIAA Class AA title at Shippensburg University’s Robb Field.

Both teams had fallen in the previous season’s title game and each rebounded to bring gold medals back to Wingate, becoming the only sport in school history to win state crowns in multiple seasons.

The parallels between the two teams were many — from getting new uniforms to start the season, to disposing of rival Philipsburg- Osceola in the District 6 title game by scoring seven runs, to allowing just one run in the PIAA playoffs and finally finishing with an identical 24-3 record.

Maybe the biggest similarity between the two teams was the motivation gained from falling short of a title the previous season. The 2005 team fell 3-0 to District 4 champ Mifflinburg, while this season’s team fell 3-2 to District 4 winner Loyalsock in the 2008 title game.

BEA coach Dave Breon said the eight-inning loss to Loyalsock was the drive toward this year’s crown.

“That was honestly the turning point,” he said. “They knew they had that game and they knew they should have won it. When they lost that game they were sort of disappointed and realized, ‘Hey, we are that good and we can be that good again.’ It started from that point.”

So the offseason workouts started in October. The mantra became “Unfinished business,” with gold medal the only goal.

The drive didn’t come without some hiccups along the way. In fact, the season was almost defined as much by the failures, which were the sources and motivation for later successes.

After a pair of mercy rule routs to open the season, the Lady Eagles fell 3-2 in 10 innings at District 6 Class AAAA finalist Central Mountain in the first game in which the international tiebreaker was invoked for a Centre County team.

Breon said the loss stung. “Their goal was to be undefeated,” he said. “They wanted to do something more than any team I’ve ever had. But when they stumbled at Central Mountain — it seems like we’re snakebit when we drive into Petty Park — they were bummed.

“I said, ‘Now that that’s out of the way we have to go.’”

The Lady Eagles ran off seven straight wins, including tight games with rivals Penns Valley (4-1) and Bellefonte (2-1 in 10 innings), and were looking for No. 8 against Altoona, a team they had routed in a preseason scrimmage. On the day before BEA’s first meeting with Philipsburg-Osceola, Altoona’s Jess Seasoltz blanked the Lady Eagles 2-0, the only time they were shut out all season.

“I think they thought it was going to be a walk in the park,” Breon said.

The next day, BEA knocked off P-O 2-1 on Brooke Klinefelter’s dramatic two-run blast in the bottom of the sixth, her first home run in nearly 11/ 2 seasons.

Even though his team won the thriller over P-O before a huge crowd in Milesburg, Breon said the Altoona loss resonated more.

“I think it made them realize that we have to become more aggressive and we have to do the job,” he said. “... You could probably say, that might have been the turning point for us because it made us wake up and realize that we’ve got to work harder.”

BEA avenged its loss to Central Mountain (5-1) and routed Penns Valley (7-0) before facing the Lady Mounties and suffering a 6-4 loss. Breon said the loss reiterated that path to Shippensburg wasn’t guaranteed.

“We really needed to bear down and start working a little bit harder if we had any thoughts of getting back here,” he said. “Philipsburg was for real. We had to show we had gotten better.”

Once the postseason arrived, all indications pointed to a rubber match against top-seeded P-O for the district crown and that’s exactly what happened.

Neither team allowed a run in reaching the title game, played at Hollidaysburg’s Legion Park. What was expected to be a pitcher’s duel turned into a slugfest.

Cortney Switzer’s home run started a four-run top of the third inning that was capped by Klinefelter’s three-run blast.

BEA pushed the lead to 5-0 before the Lady Mounties, whose only two losses were to the Lady Eagles, fought back to 5-4 entering the final inning. But Klinefelter’s RBI double was the big blow in a two-run seventh that ended P-O’s comeback hopes.

Given the caliber of Lady Mountie pitchers Kelsey Gonder and Chelsea Rex, Breon said the contest was his team’s best-hitting game of the season.

“I thought that home run of Switzer’s might be the only scoring of that game, but it wasn’t,” Breon said. “My kids came out determined and they swung the bats really well that game. Against the good caliber of pitching that they saw that day with both pitchers from Philipsburg, they didn’t back down from either one of them. When Philipsburg closed the gap, they said, ‘No, you’re not going to do that,’ and just came in and scored some more.”

While the 2005 team, which lost twice to P-O during the regular season, waltzed through the PIAA playoffs, outscoring its opponents 31-1, this season’s Lady Eagles found the runs came at more of a premium.

They hit just .198 as a team (20-for-101) in the PIAAs with four hits apiece from Jasa Mitchell, Klinefelter and Taylor Parsons. Mitchell and Klinefelter combined for eight of the team’s 10 RBIs.

What BEA managed to do was capitalize on its opponents’ mistakes. The Lady Eagles scored two unearned runs in their 3-1 win over Bishop Canevin in their PIAA opener and an unearned run in a 1-0 PIAA semifinal win against WPIAL champion Riverside.

Breon said his team drew upon the three regular-season losses. “They missed opportunities to win those games, but they’ve taken advantage of many more opportunities than they missed,” he said. “That’s the difference. Last year, we didn’t quite do that as well. There were many games where we left too many runners on base.”

The poor hitting numbers don’t tell the story for Mitchell’s big quarterfinal day against Sto-Rox. The junior blasted two long home runs in her first two at-bats and drove in five in a 7-0 quarterfinal win, BEA’s only breather of the four PIAA games.

The one thing similar to the 2005 team was that BEA had a dominant pitcher. Brittany Rees allowed just an unearned run in the PIAAs in 2005 and came within an infield hit in the seventh inning of throwing a perfect game in a 6-0 win over Brandywine Heights in the final.

Shaw, a lanky right-hander, was just as good, allowing just one run in the four PIAA games. PIAA opponents had just 11 hits against her and batted just .115. She allowed just two hits in the title game.

“Megan and Britt are a lot alike,” Breon said. “They go there with that focus that no one is going to hit them and that they’re not going to give in. Megan did that.”

Breon said nowhere was that more evident than the 1-0 victory against Riverside. “She told the team against Riverside, ‘Just get me one run and that’s all I need.’ That’s how strong she felt,” he said. “I like that when a pitcher has that much confidence to say, ‘Get me one, that’s all I need.’”

In the title game, Shaw was still looking for a run after five innings before the opportunistic Lady Eagles broke through against the Bullets’ Alyssa Fegely, who entered the game with a 26-0 record.

Parsons got things started in the sixth with a one-out single up the middle. After Lily Glunt’s sacrifice bunt, Mitchell looped a single to center to score Parsons and took second on the throw home. Klinefelter followed with a rocket through the middle for an RBI single.

It was a fitting end of the season for the two most feared hitters in the BEA lineup, who just happened to share Klinefelter’s red-and- white bat for most of the spring.

In her final season, Klinefelter batted a team-leading .419 with eight doubles, six homers, a team-leading 30 RBIs and a team-leading .770 slugging percentage. Mitchell was second on the team with a .384 average and had a team-leading seven homers, 27 RBIs and a .726 slugging percentage. The two power hitters struck out just 11 times between them.

Shaw’s two-hitter capped a 19-2 campaign. She struck out 154 and walked just 11 (an amazing 14-to-1 strike-out- to-walk ratio) and had a 0.90 ERA.

“This is the way to go out,” said Shaw after the title game. “This is definitely the way to go.”

BEA’s numbers were outstanding in several areas. The Lady Eagles outscored their opponents 181-28 over the course of the season. They allowed just two home runs (both against P-O) and 15 extra base hits, while mashing 23 home runs and racking up 65 extra base hits. The Lady Eagles hit .303 for the season, while their foes were at .141.

The home run and extra base totals were especially satisfying because they surpassed those numbers for the 2005 squad.

“They always wanted me to say something that they did better than the 2005 team,” said Breon, who enlightened his squad about the power numbers on the team bus. “... Boy, there was a big cheer. They were happy to know that they did something better than the 2005 team.”

The squad will suffer huge losses to graduation. In addition to Shaw and catcher Klinefelter, starting first baseman Meghan Granite (.304, 4 homers, 20 RBIs), right fielder Janelle Poor-man (.304) and left fielder Margaret Rougeux (.286) must be replaced. Kendra Giedroc, a utility player and baserunner, also graduated.

BEA does return most of its infield. Slick-fielding second baseman Parsons (.333) and shortstop Switzer (.242, 5 homers) are an excellent double-play combination. Third baseman Glunt (.316) is also a solid fielder who led the team in sacrifice bunts (5) and sacrifice flies (4).

Amber McClure (.357) and Kelly Chambers each started at times during the season in the outfield. Brittanie Lewis (.364) saw limited action behind Klinefelter and Rachel Weaver (5-1, 0.70 ERA) spelled Shaw in the circle.

“As far as I’m concerned, it may be finished this year, but it’s never, never really finished,” Breon said. “It’s just continuous from one year to the next. Who knows what’s going to happen next year? ... This team is gone. It was the best team this year, but now it’s different.”

Still, Breon can’t help but take pride in a group that put him into rarefied air with two state titles. Breon, who previously was head coach at Lewistown, said there’s more than just talent that separates a program that has gone to the PIAA title game four times in his six seasons.

“There’s a greater commitment,” he said. “The commitment is so much more great than say when I coached at Lewistown.”

Breon said it’s nothing for him to have more than 30 varsity and junior varsity players show up for voluntary offseason workouts.

“Every single thing we did, even all of the sprints, running and conditioning, since October, we’ve worked our butts off,” Klinefelter said. “I wouldn’t take anything back.”

Breon and the program’s staff — assistants Wayne Haas, Doug Smith, Jerry Watson, Kim Kunes and Jamie Sherry — have years of softball and baseball experience.

“I don’t think anybody could have a coach that much better and with that much more experience,” Klinefelter said of Breon. “It’s the whole coaching staff. It’s not just him. It’s everybody that that’s here. There’s so many years of experience here and they’re great people to be around.”

“I can relate to my kids. I’ve walked in their shoes,” said Breon, a local fast-pitch legend. “I know where they’ve been. I’ve struck out with the bases loaded and I’ve hit grand slams when all I wanted to do was get a tying run in. I’ve been at the bottom of that roller coaster and I’ve been at the top. That’s just the way this game is — up and down and up and down. It’s just what happens that particular day is where you’re going to be.”

And right now, that roller coaster is at the highest peak, just like it was in 2005.

“It wasn’t easy, but they weren’t going to be denied,” Breon said. “It was just as simple as that. That’s all they talked about. That’s all they wanted. They wanted to be like that 2005 team and make that mark.

“It’s something they’re never going to forget and I’m not going to forget it either. It’s a different feeling with this team. ... They didn’t come out of the same mold (as the 2005 team), but they both proved they were the best team in the state.”

“There aren’t even words to describe the feeling that all of us has right now,” Klinefelter said in Shippensburg. “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.”