Penns Valley softball storms back for a come-from-behind victory against Bellefonte
Near the end of Tuesday’s game, Penns Valley softball coach Terry Bumgardner yelled over to parents, “We had this game won in the fourth inning.”
Still, it took the Lady Rams nine innings to officially win their matchup with Bellefonte. Penns Valley needed third baseman Haddley Stover to deliver with a 4-4 gridlock, two runners on and two outs in the ninth inning. That she did — lining a two-out double down the right field line to score first baseman Noelle Webb and Ellie Coursen scoring to capture a 6-4 lead. The Lady Rams went on to win.
It wasn’t the first time that Bumgardner’s team came back from a deficit in the young season. The Lady Rams stormed back after trailing 3-0 in the fifth inning to Hollidaysburg on March 28, eventually winning 4-3. The coach believes that the two comeback victories speak to the fortitude that the group of girls have.
“I don’t think we have any panic,” Bumgardner said. “I think we have great senior leadership with Ellie Coursen, Avery Dinges and Noelle Webb and that reflects on this group of kids. They’re a team. Some of our best hitters didn’t have a hit tonight, but yet they’re out there screaming and yelling and as emotional as anybody. That’s a testament to those girls. It was such a team win and we didn’t blink.”
Stover felt that the pendulum of the game swung in her team’s favor once Clara Brooks made a play in right field. With Maria Cotter on third base with one out and Haylie Rimmey at the plate for the Lady Raiders in the bottom of the eighth inning, Brooks received the fly ball for one out and made the throw home for Coursen to tag out Cotter, who would’ve had the game-winning run — giving the Lady Rams another chance at-bat.
“That throw was amazing,” Stover said. “It all started with that throw. We got in the dugout after that inning and knew we had to get the bat on the ball and runs in that inning.”
While the Lady Rams held a 2-0 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth, Bellefonte came storming back from the deficit — first with Cotter scoring on a wild pitch and Rimmey being driven in by first baseman Taylor Brown for a 2-2 tie at the end of the fourth.
Madison Melius then crushed a ball in the following inning to put the Lady Raiders up 3-2 and Sienna Barnhart drove in Sadie Ripka in the bottom of the seventh inning for a 4-2 lead for Bellefonte.
Holding a 4-2 in the bottom of the seventh, the Lady Raiders had just a few outs to get to win. The Lady Rams foiled their plans with a single by Brooks, followed by a double from Scotty Dinges. Webb was hit by an errant pitch by Josselyn Nau to load the bases.
While Taylor Bumgardner grounded into a 6-2 tag out at home plate and Avery Dinges struck out, Coursen doubled to score Scotty Dinges and Webb and tie the game.
The rest is history from there.
Bellefonte head coach Beth Devlin is in her first year at the helm of coaching her alma mater. The most important aspect to the new head coach is instilling confidence in her team. She believes that the Lady Raiders displayed it by hanging in the game while down 2-0 in the fourth.
“Honestly, we don’t think that any team is better than we are,” Devlin said. “We’re going to be in every game. That game was a fantastic softball game. A bad hop, a slice, a hit down the line — it could’ve gone either way and like I said, ‘They hung with us.’”
This story was originally published April 4, 2023 at 9:29 PM.