STATE COLLEGE — State College and Nittany Valley were the last two teams standing in the 12U District 5 Softball Tournament. Because of an earlier 11-7 loss to State College in the tournament, Nittany Valley knew it would have to win back-to-back games against the undefeated State College team to advance to the sectional round which is slated to begin this week.
In the first game, Nittany Valley scored twice in the first inning, added a pair in the third, and then held on to beat State College 4-3 in a four-inning, rain-shortened game Thursday night at Sichler Field in State College. Caroline Fry had two RBIs for State College. Sydney Smith led Nittany Valley with two hits and two RBIs in the victory, setting up a winner-take-all championship rematch Friday night in Bellefonte.
In the rubber match between the two teams, Nittany Valley used timely hitting, great defense, and a stellar performance on the mound from Riley Solt to beat State College 5-1 and win the District 5 title.
The game was scoreless until the top of the fourth inning, when Violet Dedonato singled to bring home Ruby Garis from second base for the game’s first run. Nittany Valley would tie the game in the bottom of the inning. Sydney Smith started off by hustling to beat out a ground ball to first base that was scored as an error. After another State College error, Smith scored on a single to right field by Solt.
The top of the fifth featured what may have been the defensive play of the game for Nittany Valley. With Caroline Fry on second base, Vivian Petrich popped up to third baseman Trinity King. After King made the catch, Fry tagged up and broke for third, but King hustled back to the bag to apply the tag for the second out of the inning.
About the play, Nittany Valley manager Ryan Tubbs said, “Trinity is probably the fastest kid on our team, and we were just screaming at her, ‘She’s going, going, going!’” He added, “I told her before the game she was going to have a big night tonight. I thought it would be at the plate, but that was probably a game-saving play right there.”
Nittany Valley carried that momentum into the bottom of the fifth. Olivia King walked and then was driven in on a line-drive triple by Laura Roan to give Nittany Valley its first lead of the game. Nittany Valley kept the offense going. Kenzi Weber grounded into a fielder’s choice that scored Roan, and then Makenzie Kellogg broke the game open with a two-run single that increased Nittany Valley’s lead to 4.
Solt shut the door on State College in the top of the sixth and finished with a complete-game, three-hit victory. Tubbs talked about what it was like to shut down State College’s powerful offense.
“Riley was pretty dominant tonight. They love fastballs, and you can’t live on the inner half of the plate with them, so we mixed speeds a ton and tried to keep them off balance. I think it was evident with a lot of the pop-ups they were hitting.”
Nittany Valley has now won three straight games and will look to continue its strong play in the Section 4 Tournament this week against teams from Districts 6, 7, and 11. The Section 4 champion will then advance to the state tournament, which is scheduled to begin July 8.
