 Photographs are from Titusville District 1 finals.    | The District 1 representatives in the Pennsylvania Section 1 Junior league tournament showed grit and capitalized on good fortune en route to a 5-4 win over Punxsutawney for a chance to play for a state championship. In the seventh-inning with the score four to four, Mallory Beers was on second base when Evelyn Lesko ripped a liner to left center scoring Beers. “It was tight, but she tip-toed around (the catcher) and got in,” said head coach Jack Roberts. The run capped off a comeback for Ttitusville who began the tournament with a 4-1 loss to Punxsy. They rebounded with a 15-5 win over Clarion and a 9-6 victory over Corry before the rematch with Punxsy. Titusville had to beat them twice. In the first game Mallory Beers pitched a great game to keep Punxsy scoreless while Titusville strung together three runs to force the if necessary showdown. “First game was tight for awhile and we scored a couple runs. We started playing some small ball and they started making mistakes throwing the ball around and we were able to just close the door on that one, Roberts said. “I told the girls in between games, ‘hey, we got the first one, we got them rattled lets just out there and play our game and take it to them,’ and they did.” But at the end of the third inning they found themselves down 4-1. “I just kept telling them one run at a time, one run at a time and then we just started slowly pecking away at it, inning by inning we got a run and another. Giselle Gibbons got a big ground ball sacrifice that advanced Baleigh Greer to third base. This proved huge as the next pitch was wild allowing Greer, who is speedy, to score the tying run in the fifth inning. In the sixth fortune really smiled on Titusville when the Punxsy lead-off batter clobbered on into the outfield for a stand up triple, but when the runner rounded third thinking about heading home because the throw from the outfield sailed over third base Mackenzie Yochum’s head. But the ball took a good bounce for Titusville and bad one for Punxsy. Coming right back into Yochum’s glove she turned and lunged for the Punxsy player who was also diving back to third. “She caught her mid-air,” Roberts said. “That would’ve been a huge momentum swing, but we were able to stop that.” Then catcher Addison Roberts made another lunging catch on a short pop up for another out. That set up the dramatic walk-off extra inning. Titusville will now travels to Wellsboro where they will face the section 4 champion in the eight team bracket at 11 a.m. Thursday. |
Titusville 11-12 year old team consists of Octavia Popescu, Addison Roberts, Mallory Beers, Harper Wolfkiel, Baleigh Greer, Evelyn Lesko, Draya Sibble, Giselle Gibbons, Mackenzie Yochum, Kennedy Schmader, Hannah Ringer and Madilyn Wice.
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