Prep Softball Playoffs: Indians Ousted By Pesky North Harford, 5-4

Striking out 10 batters over her seven innings pitched, Franklin starter Mary Sobota turned in an overall quality performance. However, on the few occasions the senior provided a decent pitch to hit, visiting North Harford took advantage.

The Hawks only managed six base runners for the entire game, but five of them—including Emily Briggs, who led off the game with a home run to deep left on the very first pitch—came around to score, as North Harford would go on to upset the second-seeded Indians, 5-4, to eliminate Franklin in the 3A North quarterfinal round.

“Our whole mentality is to just have fun. Enjoy the game of softball and just play ball,” North Harford head coach Joel Cummings said. “That’s what they focused on and they played hard. They were aggressive at the plate. I said before the game, anything you like just go after it, and that’s what they did.”

With the score tied 3-3 going into the sixth, North Harford (8-11) strung together three consecutive singles of Sobota to take a 4-3 lead and then tacked on one more on Clare Dowley’s sacrifice bunt that brought Kelsey Hangeland all the way around from second to score. Amber Lahay’s throw to the plate was in time, but catcher Miranda Miller couldn’t secure the catch, allowing Hangeland to slide in safely.

“They had a couple little bloop hits, but what I think what really hurt us was a couple of [Sobota’s] curveballs hung and when she hung her curveballs, they jacked ‘em,” Franklin head coach Ed Lahay said after the game.

Looking to respond in the bottom of the frame, Franklin (13-4) got runners on second and third with one away after base hits from Kim Dorsey and Miller. However, Rachel Rubin’s deep fly ball was ran down in right field, and only Dorsey could only trot home via the sacrifice fly.

With Miller as the tying run on third, North Harford starter Melissa Doering struck out Sarah Karsh swinging to end the threat.

The Indians also had a chance to tie the game up in their final at bats, as with one away, Jackie White beat out a bobbled grounder to first and Tori Sobota took an Amanda Roberts fastball off the helmet for a hit-by-pitch to reach first as the potential go-ahead run.

However, Mary Sobota grounded to third for a fielder’s choice as North Harford nabbed White, the lead runner, and Dorsey rolled over on a grounder to short to end the game.

Coach Lahay wasn’t particularly pleased with his squad’s approach at the plate, overall.

“We definitely swung at the pitchers pitches,” Lahay said. “We haven’t seen pitching quite this slow with the quality teams all year and I think we were a little impatient at the plate. They were just trying to get out on it didn’t happen.”  

Although they were stifled offensively for the majority of the game, the Indians did get out to a hot start—in clutch fashion—to begin the game.

With two outs and the bases loaded, Miranda Miller’s double to right center cleared the bases and gave Franklin an early 3-1 lead.

However, North Harford pitching held the Indians to no runs on just two hits in innings two through five.

“I just told my pitchers to have fun,” Cummings said. “Go out there and do what you do best and they threw strikes, got on top a lot of the time and shut them down. Three or four of the innings it was one-two-three and that’s huge for us.”

BOX SCORE

North Harford 5, Franklin 4

NH 101 102 0----5 6 2

F    300 001 0----4 4 1

Pitching

NH                          IP            R             H             BB           K

Doering                (W)       6              4              4              3              4

Roberts (S)         1              0              0              0              1

F

M. Sobota (L)     7              5              6              0              10

Batting

RBI: NH-Briggs, Doering, Stiles.

        F-Miller 3, Rubin.

2B: F-Miller.

3B: N-Stiles.

       F-Dorsey.

HR: NH-Briggs.

SB: F-White 2.