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closeHOLLIDAYSBURG — Every. Single. Day.
CDT photo/Christopher Weddle
Bellefonte’s Hannah Cooper slides safely into home as Johnstown’s Katelin Lindrose applies the tag in the fourth inning of the District 6 Class AAA softball championship game on Thursday in Hollidaysburg. The Lady Raiders recaptured the crown with a 6-2 win.
That’s how often memories from last year’s 7-1 loss to Johnstown in the District 6 Class AAA semifinals went through the minds of the Bellefonte girls’ softball team.
There was no escaping it. It was always there, like a dull headache.
“I thought about it for the last 365 days, every single day,” said centerfielder Danielle Gomola. “On the first day of school, as soon as we walked into Coach Kohlhepp’s room, he had newspaper quotes from them saying how bad they wanted it. We knew if we played them again they were going down.”
And down they went, by a 6-2 score at Hollidaysburg’s Legion Park, restoring the district championship to Bellefonte where it had been for eight years
before Johnstown took it away last year.
“Simply indescribable,’’ is how winning pitcher Emily Dauberman described the feeling of regaining the title.
“We worked for this all winter. Every day in practice coach would say, ‘Johnstown, ladies.’ We went out on a sour note last year. This feels like someone just handed me a million dollars.”
At the very least Johnstown handed the Lady Raiders four runs, which made Dauberman’s job easier.
It started in the first inning when Gomola sliced an opposite-field double to left. Erica Pooler dropped a single over the second baseman’s head and the centerfielder overran the ball allowing Gomola to score and Pooler to take second. But Johnstown’s Megan McMillen retired the next two batters and went on a five-straight strikeout binge over the next two innings.
Johnstown threatened in both the first and second innings. In the first the Lady Trojans hit solid fly balls to left, center and right fields that, even though they were caught, served notice they could make contact. In the second, a walk, a fielder’s choice and an infield single put runners at first and second before Dauberman notched one of her six strikeouts to end the inning.
Between innings she summoned Hannah Cooper to the warmup area behind the dugout and each scooped up a handful of dirt and sprinkled it on the other’s shoulder.
“Coach says when you feel yourself getting down sprinkle some dirt on yourself, then brush it off,’’ Dauberman explained. “You’re just cleaning everything off — the last inning, the last at-bat, the last pitch. You just brush everything off.”
McMillen had retired nine batters in a row before her defense let her down in the fourth. With one out Christina Stathes singled to left and went all the way to third when the left fielder over ran the ball. Dauberman’s grounder to short was booted, allowing Stathes to score and Cooper followed with a single and then stole second, putting two runners in scoring position. Then Kohlhepp played a hunch and sent freshman Devon Etters to the plate to pinch-hit and she responded with a single to left that drove in both runners to give Bellefonte a 4-0 lead.
“We talked about that move a little before the game,” Kohlhepp said. “On paper you wonder why she’s hitting in a playoff game (she’s hitting right around .200) but in almost every game she’s had a very good at-bat.”
Johnstown’s defense sprang another leak in the fifth that led to two more Bellefonte runs. Brittany Smith and Gomola opened the inning with singles. Smith took third on Pooler’s fly to right and Gomola went to second on catcher’s indifference. Stathes then hit a sharp grounder to second that was booted allowing both runners to score.
“We just didn’t play our game,” said Johnstown coach Randy Romesberg, who saw his team lose for the first time in 17 games. “Defense has been our strong suit but today we kicked the ball all over the place. And Bellefonte played better defense than they did a year ago.
“After that one big inning when we got behind 4-0 our heads went down a little bit. You can’t give a good team five and six outs an inning.”
Johnstown’s offense came to life in the fifth when Kaetlin Lindrose got aboard on an error to start the inning and after two outs Steph Szczur singled a run in. After a walk to McMillen, Courtney Blank had an RBI single. But Dauberman got Lindsay Lovrich to hit into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.
As the Lady Raiders were taking the field to start the seventh, Kohlhepp called after them, “Remember how it felt last year.”
The Lady Trojans got a pair of two-out singles in the seventh to put runners at first and third but Dauberman fanned Blank to end the game.
“I just had to clear my mind and go after the hitter,” Dauberman said. “I was getting a little nervous and excited. Everyone was so loud.”
Kohlhepp, who got the traditional Gatorade shower, said he wasn’t surprised that Johnstown went down swinging.
“We knew they were an outstanding team and we knew that even though we were up 6-0 that they would come back,’’ he said. “They’ve been down before and came back.
“But our kids remembered how they felt when they were sitting against that fence after losing that game out there last year. ... And in the offseason, we knew Johnstown would be the team to beat this year. But the girls worked hard to improve their game. They wanted to get good enough to beat that team because we knew they’d be tougher this year. This feels fantastic.”
Gomola and Smith finished with two hits apiece for Bellefonte. Dauberman gave up six hits and struck out six.
“This feels amazing,” Gomola said. “I haven’t felt this way in a long time, since my freshman year when we won. I’ve waited a long time for this.”
In Print
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