Lady Hatters Beaten by One Run Again in Softball by North Penn

It may be a couple of weeks yet before the start of the District One softball playoffs, but after a 3-2 loss on Tuesday afternoon to North Penn, Hatboro-Horsham High School is faced with the prospect that postseason play begins in reality on Thursday evening.

With five games remaining in the regular season, the Lady Hatters are faced with the daunting, but doable task of winning all five to make the playoffs.

That journey begins with a Suburban One League/Continental Conference game on the road against Quakertown at 7 p.m. in Richland Township at Veteran's Park.

With winnable games against Quakertown and Bensalem remaing this week and showdowns with Norristown, Central Bucks West and Garnett Valley next week, HHHS can't afford another stumble after former Hatboro resident Jackie Bilotti shut down the Lady Hatters Tuesday in another nail-biter of a game.

North Penn executed just a little bit better and came through with one more clutch hit than Hatboro-Horsham did to beat the Lady Hatters by a single run for the second time this season.

It was the fourth loss in five games for H-H, all but one of them by one run and the other by two on a walk-off, grand slam homer as the Lady Hatters fell to 7-6 overall and 6-6 in conference.

"I think Hatboro-Horsham has a very good team and is a team that deserves to be in the playoffs," said North Penn coach Rick Torrisani, the Continental Conference representative at next week's District One playoff seeding meeting. "I think that our conference deserves five teams in the playoffs and I think we will get five teams in, if Hatboro-Horsham wins the rest of its games, which it should do."

Torrisani said that defeating Bensalem on Friday at 3:45 p.m. at home is particularly important, because it will give those doing the seeding a gauge on how Hatboro-Horsham matches up against the rival National Conference of the SOL. H-H dropped a tight scrimmage to National Cnference powerhouse Neshaminy to open the season.

Torrisani knows of what he speaks. His Maidens (10-6, 8-4) were in a similar place as H-H last season when they were one of six teams of eight teams from the conference battling for a playoff berth after finishing fifth behind a championship Lady Hatter squad.

After scraping into the bracket, North Penn knocked off one of the district favorites and defending PIAA 4-A champion Central Bucks South in the second round and went on to reach the state semifinals before losing to state runner-up Neshaminy.

The year before, North Penn also finished down in the pack in the Continental Conference, but got on a roll in the postseason to beat Bishop Shanahan — the Kate Poppe-led squad that knocked Hatboro-Horsham out of the district and state playoffs with a pair of quarterfinals-round wins — for the District One title.

While the Lady Hatters are entrenched in fifth place, the four teams ahead of them, Souderton, Central Bucks South, Central Bucks East and North Penn, are all tied with eight conference wins.

After not managing an earned run in eight innings against Hatboro-Horsham ace hurler Lexie Campbell in the first round of conference play, Torricelli said his team knew it needed a quick start on Tuesday and that's exactly what the Maidens received.

Senior Erin Maher, the 6-foot-3 center-fielder who will play basketball and softball at Philadelphia University next year, lined a single to center to lead off the game, was moved to third on a sacrifice and a sacrifice fly and scored on Vicky Tumasz's line-drive single to left to give North Penn a quick 1-0 lead.

Hatboro-Horsham evened things up in the second on doubles by Jen Cader and Campbell, 

Designated player Brynn Griffith singled Campbell to third by grounding a ball through the first-base hole, but a base-running mistake on Jamie Mroz's popped-up squeeze bunt led to an inning-ending double play that killed the Lady Hatters' chances of a bigger inning.

This nip-and-tuck- contest stayed knotted at 1-1 with Campbell and Bilotti shooting down what few threats the teams managed until the fifth.

North Penn's rally in that inning started innocently enough with one out when a dribbler by Lauren Schwartz kicked off Campbell's glove for an infield hit on a bang-bang play and Bilotti walked on a 3-2 pitch.

Becky Christoffers banged a two-out single to center to plate Schwartz with the Maidens' second run.

Kaeli Simmons replaced a tiring Campbell in the sixth and immediately walked Celeste Rosato on a 3-2 pitch. Torrisani gave his distinct verbal sign to Nicole Schussler for a bunt and her soft sacrifice in front of the circle turned into big trouble for the Lady Hatters.

The throw to first was in time to get Schussler, but it was wide of the bag in foul ground for an error that allowed North Penn to advance the two runners to second and third with no outs.

Alyssa Shoulberg followed with a sacrifice fly to center. Cader unleashed a perfect throw to the plate and catcher Bridgett Schaffer applied the tag just a split-second late as Rosato squeezed around her for the third Maiden run.

Simmons was able to work around further trouble, but the Lady Hatters were left with a two-run deficit against Bilotti, who had allowed only four hits to that point and seemed to be getting stronger as the game progressed.

Jaynie Black started the bottom of the sixth by hustling for an infield hit on a grounder that took a bad hop and bounced off Shoulberg at second base to bring up the dangerous Daria Edwards.

Bilotti had been victimized by a two-run homer off the bat of Edwards in a similar situation in the first game between these two teams, but this time, Bilotti went to an off-speed pitch to get Edwards to roll into a force play from short to second.

Cader followed with her third hit in three at-bats rifling a hard grounder through the hole at first. Edwards delayed her turn towards third and then put on the jets to fool the Maidens and Cader alertly cruised to second on the play to put the tying runs in scoring position.

The key play of the game occurred next with hot-hitting Jackie Locke at the plate. Locke crushed what looked momentarily like her first-ever prep homer to deep right-center, but the looping strides of Maher turned the blast into just a sacrifice fly against the fence, instead of a potential, game-winning, three-run roundtripper.

Pinch-hitter Kylie Flagler followed with a line drive to left, but Rosato got a great jump on the ball to record the final out of the inning to strand Cader at second.

Simmons stranded a pair of runner in the top of the seventh, including Bilotti at third after a lead-off double to deep center, but H-H was retired harmlessly one-two-three by Bilotti in the bottom of the frame to complete the North Penn victory.

In junior varsity action, it was a long day for the JV Hatters in a 17-7 loss to the Maidens.