Nothing fazes them

Streaking Pennsville rallies from two four-run deficits, beats Maple Shade in SJ Group I playoffs on Harris’ walk-off single

SOUTH JERSEY GROUP I SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS
Tuesday’s quarterfinals
(1) Audubon 15, (8) Paulsboro 0
(4) Pennsville 9, (5) Maple Shade 8
(3) Haddon Twp. 3, (6) Woodstown 1
(2) Buena 6, (10) Gateway 4
Thursday’s semifinals
Pennsville (18-4) at Audubon (17-5), 4 p.m.
Haddon Twp. (18-6) at Buena (18-6)
Saturday’s game
Championship game at higher seed

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

PENNSVILLE – The Pennsville softball team hasn’t been behind much since its last loss 45 days ago, but the Eagles trailed by four runs twice in Tuesday’s South Jersey Group I quarterfinals and just weren’t fazed by it.

They battled back both times to get back in the game and now they’re in the South Jersey Final Four for the first time since 2021.

Sophomore catcher Kylie Harris’ two-out RBI single in the bottom of the seventh scored Avery Watson from second and allowed the Eagles to walk off Maple Shade 9-8 for their 15th straight win.

“It felt really good to do that for my team,” Harris said. “They wanted that win super bad and you could just feel the energy in the dugout, so I knew what I needed to do.

“I left runners on my last at bat and I wanted to make my last at bat count.”

Now, a win at top-seeded Audubon (17-5) in Thursday’s 4 p.m. semifinal would send the Eagles (18-4) to the South Jersey finals for the first time since 2019, when they lost to Buena.

The Eagles have trailed a total of two innings since losing to West Deptford on April 13, but were down 5-1 and 8-4 against the Wildcats. The last time they trailed any opponent was 3-2 in the second inning against Pitman April 18.

They gave up three runs in the first inning Tuesday and trailed 5-1 in the third. They made it 5-4 in the third on Bella Rappa’s RBI single and Lilly Birney’s two-run double, but the Wildcats went back up 8-4 in the fourth.

The Eagles rallied for three in the fifth to bring it back to 8-7, then tied it on Bella Farina’s homer to center in the sixth – her ninth of the season – and won it in the seventh.

“I pulled them all together before we went out (for the seventh) and just said everybody take a deep breath, it’s a 0-0 game, we’re going back out, take a deep breath, you know what to do,” Eagles coach Beth Jackson said. “This is all stuff that you’ve done, nothing that you haven’t done all season. They were all fired up anyway in the dugout.”

The Eagles had multiple runners on base all inning in the seventh. They had runners at first and second with two outs when Harris delivered her game-winning hit. It was her 40th hit of the season. She is 31-of-56 (.554) during the winning streak.

“Kylie hit the some bullets right at them and they made some nice catches, so she came up big,” Jackson said. “It was good that she wasn’t frustrated from her at-bats earlier in the game. You keep at it you’re going to find a hole. There were a couple of nice things that happened that inning to lead up to that win.”

Savannah Palverento and Rappa both had three hits for the Eagles. Rappa and Birney each had three RBIs. Rappa is 6-for-8 with five RBIs in two playoff games and 26-of-47 (.553) during the winning streak. She is three hits shy of 100 for her Penns Grove/Pennsville career.