The 2016 spring season leaves no doubt that high-school diamond sports here in Centre County are not only alive and well, but they are thriving.
In the afterglow of the Bellefonte baseball team’s run to the AAA state championship, it could be easy to forget that there were a number of other area teams that also had outstanding seasons in 2016.
One of them consisted of players who were perhaps sitting right across the classrooms from the Bellefonte baseball players — the Raider softball players.
The Lady Red Raiders compiled a 17-7 record, won the District 6 AAA championship and advanced to the quarterfinals in the PIAA state tournament. Unfortunately, the Raiders’ season ended there with a 13-3 loss to eventual champion Yough, but a bad start in that game did little to dim what the team accomplished.
It is impossible to talk about the Raiders without recounting the incredible season turned in by junior pitcher Tara Baney.
Baney was an absolute nightmare for opponents on the mound and in the batters’ box.
As a pitcher, Baney started 23 games and compiled a 15-5 record. She gave up just 34 runs in 135 innings (a 1.76 ERA), walked 46 and struck out 170. She didn’t give up a run until her sixth start of the season, and no team scored more than two runs against her in the playoffs until the Yough game.
She also hit .438 for the season with 32 total hits, 10 home runs and 23 runs batted in. She was the only player on the team to hit a home run, and she led the Raiders in every hitting category.
And, this was on a team that hit .279 collectively and had three other players hit over .300 (Alexis Wetzler, Rianna Trexler and Samantha Gates).
Also, being a junior means that she will be back next year leading a large group of experienced returning players for the Raiders.
Staying with softball, Philipsburg-Osceola and Bald Eagle Area again battled it out for the top honors in the Mountain League and in the District 6 AA tournament.
The teams finished with identical 12-2 records in league play and were named co-champions. P-O entered the D6 tournament as the No. 1 seed, and BEA was seeded No. 3. Of the two, on paper BEA seemed to have the tougher road to the title game, but no matter. The Lady Eagles beat Bishop McCort and Central to force game three against the Lady Mounties (the teams split during the regular season) in the D6 championship.
P-O prevailed in that game, 4-0, behind the stellar pitching of freshman Cam Harris.
Both teams, however, still qualified for the state tournament.
BEA ran into a very hot Ellwood City team from District 7 and its season ended with a 10-0 loss to the WPIAL champions.
P-O was also in dire peril of losing its first-round game to Steel Valley until Haylee Hayward and Chelsey Henry blasted back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to tie the game. The homers were probably the most electric moments in the season, and they sparked the Mounties’ 6-5 comeback win.
The magic didn’t last, unfortunately, and Philipsburg’s season ended in the quarterfinals with a 16-12 loss to South Park.
The most improved team in the area over the 2015 season was the Philipsburg-Osceola baseball team.
The Mounties finished the season 15-8 and advanced to the District 6 AAA semifinals. They lost there, 4-0, to eventual champion Bishop McCort, but their two wins to get there were among the best wins by any local team all season.
Against Chestnut Ridge in the first round, P-O was down to its last strike twice before coming back and tying the game in the seventh and the ninth inning. Chestnut Ridge paid for letting the Mounties hang around when P-O pushed across a run in the 10th to win the game 4-3.
The Round 2 game, at No. 1 Richland, was more than noteworthy because of the Mounties’ dominance in the game — a convincing 8-1 thrashing in a game thought to be just a stepping stone for Richland.
Then, to top it all off, Bellefonte went on a 9-0 tear to end its season with the AAA state title. How that happened has since been minutely broken down and parced, but it was still amazing nonetheless.
It was an appropriate end to an outstanding spring season.
