Three weeks ago on May 21 in the District 6 AAA first-round softball game against Tyrone, Philipsburg-Osceola found itself looking squarely at elimination.
The Lady Mounties were down by three runs going into the bottom of the last inning in what was an elimination game.
Facing this kind of adversity, however, always seemed to inspire this team, and they responded by hitting two home runs in a four-run rally that pulled the game out, 7-6, and saved their season.
The results that day could be looked at in different ways. Either the one-loss Mounties had some vulnerabilities after all, or P-O was a team that could survive and advance despite almost any obstacle.
Turns out, “survive and advance” are exactly the things that Philipsburg has been doing since. There wasn’t anything that Ligonier Valley, Central, DeLone Catholic, South Park or, most recently, Southmoreland could put up that could stop P-O’s march to the PIAA championship game.
They were all worthy teams, and there were some extremely close games, especially against Ligonier Valley, Central and South Park.
But the Mounties’ 15-4 victory June 11 over Southmoreland landed them back into the PIAA AAA championship game against District 2’s Holy Redeemer.
In many ways, the Southmoreland win was typical of what made P-O so successful this season.
Going into the fifth inning, the game was a close, 2-2 affair with the Scotties, as the home team, actually having the advantage.
All season, someone for P-O always seemed to step in these situations, however, and this time it was shortstop Hannah Thompson.
Thompson jump started a two-run rally with a leadoff double in the fifth, and then she really upped the pressure with a two-run homer in the sixth that gave P-O a 6-2 lead.
Winning pitcher Kam Harris followed two hitters later with a two-run shot of her own, making the score 8-2, and then seven more runs in the top of the seventh sent the Mounties into the finals.
It was Philipsburg’s 24th win of the season, against just one loss, and its 17th in a row.
To get win No. 25 and the AAA state championship, P-O will have to beat the District 2 champion Holy Redeemer.
Holy Redeemer is 20-2 on the season, and if there is one name to know about when facing the Royals it is that of senior pitcher Morgan Bienkowski.
Bienkowski record is a perfect 18-0. She pitched 135 innings and gave up only five earned runs all year (that’s right), struck out 282 and walked just 16.
Bienkowski’s team is presently on an 11-game win streak, and she was the winning pitcher in all of them. In that stretch, she’s allowed a total of five runs and a total of a mere two runs in Holy Redeemer’s entire playoff run.
At one point, she shut out six teams in a row before Loyalsock Township scored a run against her in the first round of the state tournament. Springfield Township from District 1 scored another run against her in the quarterfinals, but other than that, it’s been all zeros.
Bienkowski’s team is no slouch at the plate either. The Royals hit .281 this season with 16 home runs, and they scored a total of 138 runs on 159 hits.
Three players — Samantha Raiza, Tiana Wren and Bienkowski — hit over .400 for the year, and Wren and Bienkowski combined to hit 12 home runs knock in 47 runs.
Bienkowski pitched a one-hitter and drove in a run on two hits in Holy Redeemer’s 2-0 victory over North Schuylkill in the PIAA semifinals.
This will be the third time in four years that Holy Redeemer plays for the state championship. The Royals won the title as a AA team in both 2015 and 2016 when the state had only four classifications. Now, they will return to face Philipsburg in the 2018 AAA title game.
The game is set to be played at Penn State’s Beard Field at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, June 14, after Gazette press time. In previous years, the game time at Penn State has been changed to accommodate local teams and the large crowds they draw, so it is possible that the starting time could be moved for this game as well.
