Recap

One score & 14 years ago, your forefathers (me) hated Hempfield.  We did not have winning or even good sports teams.  The only thing that mattered, every season was beating Hempfield.  I don’t know if that is still alive & well in Manheim Township.  I can tell you that through the years I have managed to forget many old grudges, forgiven & forgotten…well, mostly just forgotten, but my vitriol has not diminished in the least for Hempfield.  Up until I returned to Manheim Township & my kids started playing sports, I can honestly say, I hadn’t thought once about Hempfield.  But I believe it was my son, playing Elementary Age Football…met them on the field,  & that old ember reignited…it was like “Newman!”, which I may have actually muttered under my breath.

Much like the Hatfields & McCoys, I am not sure how or why this rivalry even started.  The few times I have taken the time to get to know Hempfilders, they haven’t been so bad.  Heck, my daughter plays travel ball with their RF/Catcher.  She & her parents are lovely people.  Based on the comments I heard from their side of the field though, it is just as alive for them.  So, this win was especially sweet.  Oops…hope I didn’t ruin that for anyone…, but “spoiler alert”…we won.

For anyone reading this who may have attended or lived in Hempfield in the past, I am sorry, but it’s OK, you are in a better place now.  You have converted.  My wife, who grew up a Rangers fan converted to a Flyers fan, so anything is possible (I am talking to you Yankee fans out there).  I hope you all are reading this as seriously as I am writing this…ha, ha, ha!

I kid, I kid

(crickets chirping)

I always wonder if anyone get’s these jokes.

But seriously, we lost to them 3X’s last year and once this year.  They were all pretty ugly loses.  So, to watch our Lady Blue Streaks battle like they did last night for 6.5 innings…mmmm…this was a sweet & meaningful win.  As with the Solanco game, we can jump right to the end, and you guys can’t cheat because GameChanger stopped recording individual snippets right when our bats got hot.  Now I could go through the process of screen recording the Bottom of the 6th, cutting out all the other screen clutter, & then chop up the video, but that is a lot of work and I have some side projects for upcoming posts on the website that are already quite time consuming.  It’s not that the 3 of you reading this aren’t worth it, but I have a lot of pokers in the fire right now, so you are going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, before the days of ESPN, and read the sports pages…or just continue reading here.

Bella Stern (2nd) was a busy bee last night with a 1.000% FPCT on 6 total chances.    Bella Stern (2nd) made a great back handed stop in the Top of the 3rd & a diving catch at one point worthy of ESPN.

Ava Stern (P) only had 5K’s.  I say only because she was on FIRE.  Of the 112 pitches she threw, 73 were strikes!

Katie Moore (RF), while the stat book won’t show it, laid herself out 2X’s on diving catch attempts that she missed.  Had she made them, they would have been spectacular ESPN type plays, but the fact that she laid herself out like that for her team shows me more about her heart and her character than had she made those catches.  The attempt itself was spectacular & I commend the effort!  Hat’s off, I see you Katie Moore (RF).  And in the end, the rest of her team picked her up and the game was scoreless until the 6th inning.

That is really the story of last night’s game.  Did we play a perfect game? No.  Were there mistakes? Yes.  Did we struggle at the plate? Yes.  Did we leave runners on base? Yes.  But these young ladies never faltered.  They never got down.  When someone made a mistake, a teammate picked it up.  They never lost faith, in each other, in the team.  If that team shows up for the rest of the season, watch out.  But it takes all the ladies on the field, all the ladies on the bench, and all the coaches, for every moment of every inning.

The Defense as a whole was absolutely lights out.

And since it seems we don’t get our bats going, as a team, until the 6th or 7th inning, and then pour it on like we are playing toddlers, there was no hole to dig themselves out of.

So….5 innings…0-0.  I ran through my Pepto & had to dig into my wife’s, which was 3 years old and tasted terrible, but temporarily did the trick.  Pepto doesn’t go bad does it?  Don’t answer that it is too late and I don’t want to know.  I almost lost my voice and I couldn’t sit still.  I was probably more exhausted at the end of the game that the players.

But I digress.  Let’s jump to the Bottom of the 6th inning, 0-0.  “Big Play” May Castillo (SS), who has been hot all season, especially in clutch spots, smoked a line drive into CF for a single to lead-off the inning.  Next up, Natalie Brownell (LF) who at that point was 0 for 2 with a ground out to 3rd in the 2nd & a ground out to short in the 4th, blasted another line drive to RF for another single.  It was lucky that the Neffsville Fire Department was right there, because as hard as these 2 ladies hit the ball, it was on fire!  Now, I am no coach & other than watching and yelling at the top of my lungs, I don’t know much about Softball strategy, but in what I would call a questionable decision, the Black Knights intentionally walked Paige Hughes (DP).  Certainly Paige Hughes (DP) speaks softly and carries a big stick, but there were no outs, so loading the bases in the bottom of the 6th with a 0-0 score…well…it doesn’t make sense to me, but maybe someone can explain the rational to me at the next game.  So, bases loaded, bottom of the 6th, 0-0 score, no outs and up walks senior Ellie Comerford (3rd).  She does not speak so softly, but she does carry a big stick as well.  She hits a hard fly ball to CF for an out, but the most important out of the game, as all runners tag up and advance.  And since bases were loaded, May Castillo (SS) crosses the plate to break the tie.  But our Blue Streaks weren’t done, they were just getting started.  A couple batters later, Ashley Bryant (1st) smacks a hard ground ball through the infield and into LF, scoring Natalie Brownell (LF) & Paige Hughes (DP), 3-0.  Before the inning was over, Ava Stern (P) pulled a “Sara Hess” rocketing a double to RF, scoring Ashley Bryant (1st), and Sara Hess (C) & Bella Stern (2nd), both of whom had walked earlier.  The damage was done and our Lady Streaks would start the top of the 7th with a commanding 6-0 lead.

The Black Knights would not go down quietly and did manage to save themselves from a shut-out, scoring 1 run in the top of the 7th, but that was all she wrote and it was more than a flesh wound.  Township guts out a great 6-1 victory over rival Hempfield.

Keep shoveling the coal ladies, get that Fire box good & hot, let’s keep this train rolling to Warwick on Wednesday, April 23rd @ 7pm where we will play under their lights.  We blanked them a few weeks ago, but since then they have come alive.  They won’t be a push-over & will be looking for revenge.  If we play like we did last night though, I don’t think there is a team we cannot beat.

Choo, Choo…

GOOOOOO STREAKS!!!!!

Manheim Township High School Varsity Softball Diamond
115 Blue Streak Blvd Lancaster, PA 17601