Glendale vikings
Glendale Junior/Senior High School
Girls Varsity Softball
Game Summaries & Headlines.
4.0 years ago @ 1:16PM
By Rich Murawski
FLINTON — Down 8-3 heading to the bottom of the sixth and reeling after watching Conemaugh Valley put three runs on the board in the top of the frame on a home run, things looked bleak for the Glendale softball team.
But the Lady Vikings rallied for eight runs in the inning in an epic comeback and Lexi Mulhollen, who tossed six innings of relief with a broken finger, took care of the Blue Jays in the top of the seventh to give Glendale an 11-8 victory in the District 6 Class A semifinals on Thursday afternoon.
The Lady Vikings advance to play Claysburg-Kimmel in the finals next week and also qualified for the PIAA playoffs with the win.
Glendale sent 13 batters to the plate in the sixth, smacking eight hits and getting helped along by three Blue Jay errors. And the Lady Vikings did it after managing just one run and four hits in the first four innings off Conemaugh starter Kasey McClain.
“I just don’t think the girls were ready to go home,” Glendale interim head coach Beth Campbell said. “I think they were starting to think, ‘this game is over and we’re not ready.’ We told the girls one base at a time. We can do this. We can do it if we go one base at a time and we’re patient.
“To be honest, the rest of the game we weren’t patient. But that inning we were patient. We waited until the ball got there and we drove through it and we did what needed to be done.”
The inning started with an infield error that allowed Lilley Vereshack to reach base.
Brooke Smeal followed with a double to the gap to chase Vereshack all the way around from first and make it 8-4. Smeal was 3-for-3 with three RBIs against McClain and had a hand in helping her teammates get on to her.
“Every time we go back in the dugout we try to give pointers and tell each other what the pitcher is doing,” Smeal said. “Our team is a little younger and it’s nice. I love all my girls. We all pitched in today and I’m just so happy. Once a couple people caught on, we all did.
“I’m just happy I can do something to help the team. I just want to keep playing. I’m ready to go play in the championship.”
After Smeal’s double, Kyla Campbell stepped to the plate.
Campbell was 0-for-2 to that point, hitting into a double play in the second and getting caught looking at strike 3 in the fourth, and she was pulled from the circle in the top of the second inning after giving up four runs.
But her tough day quickly turned into something else as she took a 3-2 offering from McClain and belted it over the wall for a 2-run shot to make the game 8-6 and send all the momentum into the Glendale dugout.
That was great,” Smeal said. “She didn’t let her pitching get to her. She stepped up when we needed her. I love her so much.”
“I came up and my mom (coach Campbell) just told me to calm down, step up to the plate and wait for it to come in,” Kyla Campbell said. “Whenever I got up I made sure I called timeout so I had a little time to think. I got it to a 3-2 pitch and I just waited on it, and it went.”
Hanna Noel kept the train rolling with a single up the middle, but McClain was able to get the next two Lady Vikings out and looked to get out of the inning with the 8-6 lead.
But Glendale had other ideas.
Mulhollen sent a single through the middle on an 0-2 pitch and Olivia Reese collected a base hit to load the bases. Reese had two hits in the game and now has 40 for the year, which is a single-season record for Glendale.
The ball Reese hit was a slow roller to the shortstop that Noel alertly jumped over on her way to third.
“Hanna Noel jumping over that ball ... that ends the inning if she does not jump that ball,” coach Campbell said. “We just did everything we needed to do to make what happened, happen.”
After Noel’s alert baserunning, Alaney Vereshack delivered a two-run single to tie the game at 8-8.
Lilley Vereshack followed with an RBI single to give Glendale its first lead of the game 9-8.
Another Conemaugh Valley error allowed Smeal to reach base and another Lady Viking to score, while Campbell’s second at bat of the frame was a run-producing single that gave Glendale its 11-8 lead.
Mulhollen did the rest in the circle.
Pitching with a splint to protect a broken index finger on her throwing hand, Mulhollen got the first two Blue Jays out in the seventh before giving up a single to Sydney Richards.
But she got Mikayla Burke to ground out to second baseman Reese to end it and set off a jubilant celebration between the circle and first base.
“All heart. Everything was heart,” Mulhollen said of the comeback. “We’ve come back in a lot of games this year and it’s all because of heart. We really wanted it.”
The game certainly didn’t start off well for the Lady Vikings, who fell behind 2-0 after one and were down 4-0 in the top of the second with no outs.
McClain and Tessa Gunby opened the first with back-to-back doubles and a passed ball later in the frame allowed another run to score.
McClain’s 2-run homer made it 4-0 and sent coach Campbell to the circle to make the pitching change.
Mulhollen got the first eight batters out that she faced before allowing a solo homer to McClain with two outs in the fourth, making the score 5-0.
Smeal’s RBI single in the bottom of the fourth made it 5-1 and a Chloe McElheny pinch-hit 2-run home run in the home half of the fifth put the Vikings in striking distance 5-3.
The McElheny long ball was key to jumpstarting the Glendale offense.
“I kind of coach with gut feelings and I had a feeling that she would make something happen,” coach Campbell said. “She has a home run swing and when she connects it’s going, and she did.”
“I think once Chloe hit the home run, we all got more into it and got really excited and we just all started hitting,” Kyla Campbell said.
But Conemaugh Valley put some distance between it and the Lady Vikings in the top of the sixth when Tessa Gunby drilled a 3-run home run off Mulhollen after a one-out double from Lexi Ferg and a two-out intentional walk to McClain.
McClain and Gunby were 5-for-7 with two doubles, three home runs and seven RBIs between them.
“Their top four are probably four of the best hitters we’ve seen all year,” coach Campbell said. “Those top four just kill the ball.”
