Bellefonte softball beats Central Mountain for its first Class 5A district title
Bellefonte’s PIAA District 6 Class 5A championship game against Central Mountain was as advertised — and then some.
After the game was suspended after three innings Wednesday tied at 1, Bellefonte went on the attack Thursday to win the district title 5-3 at Saint Francis University. Lexi Rogers pitched all seven innings and allowed three runs. Behind the plate catching her was Maddie Tice, who’s been with her since the beginning of their playing careers.
“I feel like since we’ve all been together since Little League, basically. Seeing everything coming together over the years has been so great to see,” Rogers said. “Just the bond that we have is more than other teams personally have is because we’ve played together so long.”
Bellefonte coach Travis Foster has seen the ups and downs of softball. Last year was one of the lowest points, when teams across the state were put on hold and the season was eventually canceled due to COVID-19.
Being unable to play or practice and grow together as a team put many behind the eight ball. But his team responded with a big win over Central Mountain, marking their first Class 5A championship. Bellefonte’s last district title was in Class 4A in 2019.
“It’s our first win in 5A,” Foster said. “We’ve won district championships before and you can’t compare teams with previous things that have happened, but coming out after last year and not getting to play and missing out on that (championship) as well, we come back this year to win one and it feels really good.”
Central Mountain took an early 1-0 lead with Alyssa Fisher leading off the bottom of the first with a home run over the left field fence. Bellefonte’s Hanna Lauck answered back with a solo home run of her own over the center field fence leading off the top of the second for a 1-1 game.
Bellefonte’s Madison Melius was able to capitalize on a two-out error by Central Mountain that allowed her to advance to second base. On the next at-bat, Lily Gardner smacked a double down the right field line to score Melius to take the lead. Tori Reichert singled in the next at-bat to score Gardner for a 3-1 lead in the fifth inning.
“It was the scary part of hitting that I had two strikes and I was worried that I was going to let my team down, but I didn’t,” Gardner said. “I had my coach behind me telling me that ‘You are going to do something big for the team this game.’ And I pulled out for everybody and I’m very proud of all of us for winning this game.”
Maggie Saar walked to score Caitlyn Watson in the bottom of the second with the bases loaded to cut Bellefonte’s lead to 3-2 in the bottom of the fifth. Bellefonte’s Haylie Rimmey slapped a double down the left field line to score Sara DeHaas and Grace Novitsky to gain a 5-2 lead in the top of the sixth.
Tice believes that the team could continue its strong play and go as far as their senior talent leads them.
“I feel like we can take it game-by-game, but we definitely have a shot at a state championship,” Tice said. “We need to just not get ahead of ourselves, just focus on the pitches that are in front of us.”
On the other side, Central Mountain coach Fred Caldwell has a youthful group of players. His starting pitcher Adalynn McKeague had to get prepared for a game on Wednesday, then had a whole day to sit and dwell on how to pitch to Bellefonte on Thursday morning.
Despite it all, he felt that his team made a valiant effort to fight and looks forward to what they can produce next year.
“I feel like we had momentum going into last night and then you kind of break that and have to start over and that’s tough,” Caldwell said. “It’s the same for both teams, it’s not an advantage for them. I think that it made it a bit difficult for us to lose momentum.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 2:43 PM.