Pleasant Valley advances to District 11 4A softball finals

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Neither a major traffic jam on Route 22 nor a stubborn Bangor Slaters team could prevent Pleasant Valley from earning a berth in the District 11 4A softball finals.

The Bears (20-4) were stuck in a major jam en route to Patriots Park on Wednesday night and arrived only about 10 minutes before the scheduled 5 p.m. resumption of their District 11 4A semifinal against Bangor.

Pleasant Valley warmed up quickly, and had a 4-0 lead at the outset resulting from the one inning played on Tuesday night before bad weather intervened.

It took awhile for the Bears to get going and Bangor trimmed their lead to 4-2 before a four-run sixth inning opened up some breathing room en route to an 8-3 win.

Pleasant Valley is in the district final, set for 7 p.m. Thursday at Pates, for the first time since 2011 when the Bears lost to Easton 9-8. It's PV's third appearance overall in the finals. The Bears also lost to Nazareth in 2006.

"Today has been a long day for us," PV coach Steve Caffrey said. "Some of our girls had Special Olympics at school and then the long ride down here. We had a 4-0 lead coming  here, but it wasn't a comfortable lead. Having the lead put more pressure on us. And then that hour and 45-minute ride was tough after we were here last night as well."

But after being held scoreless by Bangor pitcher Erin Happel after the resumption of play for four innings, PV broke through for five hits and four run in the bottom of the sixth.

Katie Lenart, Jordan Meckes and Kiersten Griesback all knocked in runs and another scored on an error.

Bangor, the Colonial League champs who finished 17-7, got back into the game with two runs in the third when Kaitlyn Caleen and Courtney Constable knocked in runs, and then stirred again in the seventh when Constable knocked in a run with a fielder's choice.

But the Slaters left the bases loaded and stranded 11 runners overall.

PV senior Tracey Deubler (pictured above) went the distrance, scattering eight hits, striking out 11 and walking four.

"The traffic jam killed our mood a little bit, but we just had to execute," the Widener-bound Deubler said. "It was a bit of a pain to have to come back. We were doing really good [Tuesday night] and it would have been better if we just kept playing. But we still got the job done."

Deubler, who also had two hits, said she remembers being a freshman when PV made it to the 2011 district finals.

"We came really close that year and I've been looking forward to getting another shot ever since I was a freshman," Deubler said. "It's going to be tough if it's Parkland. But I think we can pull it off."

Bangor           002 000 1 -- 3 8 1

Pleasant Vly   400 004 x -- 8 12 2

Langdon, Happel (1) and Smith; Deubler and Caffrey.