GREENCASTLE — Greencastle-Antrim scored a run in the bottom of the seventh inning to swipe a victory over Red Land in a District 3 Class 5A softball playoff game Thursday afternoon in a home game.
The victory gives the Blue Devils (19-5) third place in the district and a matchup with District 1 champion West Chester East on the road Monday in a first-round game of the PIAA Tournament. Pairings and times will be released over the weekend.
Minnie Gambacurta
“The process is working — lose in the semifinals, take third and get into that same bracket we were in last year,” said Greencastle coach Mark DeCarli. “This was a good win to get us going, now I hope we can make a run at a state championship.”
With the score tied 3-3 going to the bottom of the seventh, Allison Logsdon reached on a Patriot error, then Paiton Gordon followed with a base hit. Kiersten Swain got an infield single to third base to load the bases.
That brought up Kylie Kerns, who hit into a 6-2 fielder’s choice for the first out. But Kindal Rice smacked a single to bring in Gordon with the game-winning run.
“Kindal hit the ball really well today,” DeCarli said. “She had two strikes on her, then she laced a hit up the middle.”
Swain (10-4) went the distance for the Blue Devils, allowing 6 hits and 2 walks and striking out 3.
DeCarli said, “Kiersten looked good. Kept them off-balance and got a lot of outs on pop-ups. And she really held their first four batters in check. The defense played well, too, except that one error.”
That error came in the fourth with the game scoreless. Red Land (20-4) loaded the bases with two outs and Swain induced a fly ball to right. But the ball was dropped and all three runners scored.
Then Greencastle rallied in the bottom of the sixth to tie it up. With one out, Rice singled and Erika Hoover drew a walk. Minnie Gambacurta then batted and belted a triple into the right-centerfield gap to score both of them.
“Red Land was playing their outfielders very shallow, and put their rightfielder about 10 feet from the foul line because the wind was blowing that way,” DeCarli said. “They stole a couple of base hits from us because of that, but Minnie hit one into the gap and got all the way to third.”
Serenity Goodman then grounded a ball to shortstop, enabling Gambacurta to race home with the tying run.