Pennsville knocks off undefeated Delsea, but is it good enough to earn them a No. 1 seed in the South Jersey Group I playoffs?
WEDNESDAY SOFTBALL
Pennsville 7, Delsea 5
Schalick 6, Palmyra 5
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNSVILLE — For the Pennsville softball team the waiting begins. The next 18 hours are critical.
The Eagles handed Delsea its first loss of the season 7-5 Wednesday on the extended final day for games to count towards power points for playoff seedings.
Now they wait to see whether they have done enough to be installed as the No. 1 seed in the South Jersey Group I playoffs when the bracket is determined presumably Thursday.
“I’m not the head coach so I don’t know that answer,” said Lisa Doran, who directed the team in the latter innings after head coach Beth Jackson excused herself to attend her stepdaughter’s junior college graduation. “It would be great (to be the 1 seed) and we’re feeling good and ready to go into this thing, but where we’re going to stand I just don’t know.
“You always want to be 1 but I don’t know exactly where we were left after yesterday so I’m not really sure.”
The Eagles went into the game second behind Audubon in the SJG1 power points standings. Both teams scored major victories Wednesday.
Pennsville’s win came over the undefeated No. 1 team in South Jersey Group III power points. Audubon beat Kingsway, the No. 1 power points team in SJ Group IV.
When the results were posted to the record, Audubon remained first at 26.124 and Pennsville was second at 24.128, an even larger margin than when the day began.
“Audubon beat Kingsway so we’re probably staying No. 2,” Jackson said “That’s a huge win for them, just like ours, but we won’t know for sure until tomorrow.”
But the power points are just one of the tools the seeding committee considers. What also likely works in the Eagles’ favor is they are the winningest team in SJ1 (19-4) and have fewer losses — in some cases half as many — than Audubon and Haddon Twp. on either side of them in the PP standings.
The players believe they have done enough to be the top seed.
“I think we have the power, the momentum, to be No. 1,” shortstop-pitcher Graillyn Weber said. “We’re a good team, we’ve worked hard this whole season and we want it, so yes.”
“We’ve been playing good throughout the season and I think we deserve to be No. 1,” second baseman Reagan Wariwanchik added.
The Eagles, coming off an extra-inning loss at Schalick, continued its trend this year of following a loss with a win. In addition to coming into the game as the last undefeated public school team in the state, Delsea also was working on a 23-game regular-season winning streak going back to last season.
The Eagles answered both times the Crusaders came after them.
Delsea scored a run in the third inning, but the Eagles answered with Kylie Harris’ record-tying two-run 15th double in the bottom of the inning to take a 2-1 lead. Harris tied her own single-season school record with the hit and hit a shot hard enough to break it in the sixth but held at first after ripping a one-hopper off the fence.
Delsea tied it 3-3 with two in the fifth, but this time the Eagles answered with three to take the lead for good. Wariwanchik’s two-run bases-loaded single put them up 5-3 and Lily Edwards’ single off the pitcher brought another run home.
Wariwanchik’s go-ahead hit came after Avery Watson’s one-out double and back-to-back walks to Sawyer Simmons and Mak Widener.
Simmons drew a bases-loaded walk in the sixth to make it 7-3 and the Eagles withstood a Delsea flurry in the seventh to close it out.
“I was nervous when I first went up there, but I always take a deep breath before every pitch and that definitely helped,” Wariwanchik said. “I think I had the confidence in myself today to know what I need to do and it helped me hit. It was definitely one of my biggest hits.”
The Eagles’ defense kept the fifth inning from getting any worse when they caught Cailyn Centeno taking too wide a turn at first on her game-tying single and Weber, who moved into the circle earlier in the inning, cut the throw from center and fired to first to get her for the final out.
“I tried to act like I wasn’t going to get the ball,” Weber said. “I knew she was going to make a wide turn and was probably going to go because the run from third had already scored so I got the ball as close as I could for the rundown.”
Weber came into the circle after starter Savannah Brewer-Palverento walked the first two batters in a misty rain that made it tough to get a good grip the ball. Up to that point she gave up five hits, one run (a solo homer) and hadn’t walked anyone. Weber pitched the final three innings.
“It definitely was nerve wracking knowing that it was raining and I didn’t know if I would be able to grip the ball and spin it,” Weber said, “but I had my towel, had my rosin and it pulled through; it definitely worked out. I knew we could do it because I had my defense behind me and I was making sure I wasn’t putting anything over the plate.”
And now they wait.
SCHALICK 6, PALMYRA 5: The Cougars rallied from a 5-2 deficit with two in the fifth and two in the sixth to win what’s shaping up as a preview of a projected first-round tournament game. In the latest power point standings, Schalick is a solid 5 and Palmyra 12th, which would put them together in the opening round.
PROJECTED SJ GROUP I PAIRINGS
(Based on May 21 power points)
No. 16 Gateway (4-14, 8.515) at No. 1 Audubon (15-7, 26.124)
No. 9 Riverside (13-5, 14.892) at No. 8 Cape May Tech (14-7, 15.439)
No. 12 Palmyra (7-11, 12.012) at No. 5 Schalick (13-4, 19.305)
No. 13 Glassboro (7-10, 11.905) at No. 4 Woodstown (12-7, 20.116)
No. 14 LEAP (10-5, 10.075) at No. 3 Haddon Twp. (14-8, 22.559)
No. 11 Buena (5-18, 12.449) at No. 6 Maple Shade (11-8, 16.331)
No. 10 Clayton (8-11, 12.925) at No. 7 Pitman (10-8, 15.924)
No. 15 Wildwood (5-12, 9.819) at No. 2 Pennsville (19-4, 24.128)
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