Playing through

Woodstown edges Schalick, Pennsville routs Pitman to reach SJ Group I semifinals; Woodstown’s Clark records 100th career strikeout

SOUTH JERSEY GROUP I SOFTBALL
Friday’s Quarterfinals
Woodstown 3, Schalick 1
Pennsville 14, Pitman 4
Haddon Twp. 13, Maple Shade 3
Cape May Tech 7, Riverside 3 (first round)
Wednesday’s Semifinals
No. 4 Woodstown (14-7) vs. Audubon-Cape May Tech winner
No. 3 Haddon Twp. (16-8) at No. 2 Pennsville (21-4), 2 p.m.

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

WOODSTOWN – The lessons Rob Hildebrand learned playing baseball for a legendary coach have stayed with him long after he hung up the spikes. He reaches back for them when he needs them and Friday they helped his Woodstown softball team take a South Jersey playoff game from its biggest rival.

If the bats are running a little cold and it’s getting late in the game Hildebrand learned from Lee Ware, you’ve got to find a way score some runs. The Wolverines manufactured three runs in the late innings, including one off a key double steal in the sixth, to get around a strong pitching performance by Schalick’s Addi Shimp and score a 3-1 victory for a spot in the South Jersey Group I semifinals.

“I played for legendary coach Lee Ware,” Hildebrand said. “He won championships and won division titles scoring runs with not the best talented players. We don’t have that, we have talented players, but when you have games when you’re just not scoring for whatever reason it is you’ve got to have those (plays) in your back pocket.

“We’ve been working things like that, other plays too we haven’t had a chance to implement, but I knew as soon as we had that first and third opportunity, I saw the looks on their faces that said this is a chance we have to do something. It was something I was always raised up to do.”

The Wolverines (14-7) now await the winner of Monday’s Audubon-Cape May Tech quarterfinal. If top-seeded Audubon wins, the fourth-seeded Wolverines go there Wednesday. If Cape May Tech pulls the upset, they will host.

Woodstown won the first two meetings between the Diamond Division rivals this season relatively comfortably, but on this day Shimp and the Cougars gave the Wolverines all they could handle.

Schalick took a 1-0 lead in the third inning after the Wolverines fielded a sacrifice bunt along the third base line instead of letting it roll foul, putting two runners in scoring position, and played a grounder to third for an out and allowing Taylor Brown to score instead of perhaps freezing the runner or cutting down her down at the plate.

Hildebrand explained he’d gladly go for the out in those situations even if it meant giving up an early run because he was confident they’d score plenty to win. Another lesson from the master.

The way Shimp was pitching it looked for a while that might be the only run of the game. The Schalick pitcher scattered six hits and worked her way through traffic it created until the defense let her down in the late innings.

“It’s kind of frustrating because we knew we could hang with these guys and we did and our defense had a little miscue,” Schalick coach Rick Higinbotham said. “That’s frustrating, especially when Addi pitches so well.”

Woodstown pitcher Leah Clark went toe-to-toe with Shimp. She gave up only two hits and struck out eight, including the 100th of her career on the first of her two punchouts in the fourth inning. She fanned three in a row after the Cougars’ leadoff hitter reached and ended the game on a strikeout.

“Obviously it’s a huge goal, but I didn’t really think of it very much,” she said. “I was definitely getting a little nervous in the beginning (of a tight game) but I have to put my nerves aside and just relax on the mound and throw it in and just do what I can to get the outs.”

The Wolverines won the game with two runs in a sixth inning that was a master class in softball strategy.

Woodstown had runners Gracie Hitchner and Avery Battle at the corners with one out after the Cougars threw away the force on Clark’s grounder to short. Both coaches called their players over to talk about the way they were going to play the inevitable double steal.

Kendall Young showed bunt and courtesy runner Battle took off for second. Schalick catcher Alex Shimp threw all the way through and the Cougars couldn’t make the throw back quickly enough to get Hitchner tearing down the line from third. 

“We have a play that we put in place and it was in place, we didn’t execute the way we should have,” Higinbotham said. “You teach the girls how to do things but they have to see things for themselves and make adjustments and we didn’t make that adjustment. There were a couple things we look for and they didn’t.”

“My hope,” Hildebrand said, “was if they tried to get an out, we were getting a run. If they tried to get the run, we’re going to have second and third. It was a win-win.” 

Hitchner knew she was coming to the plate as soon as she got to third.

“He told me to,” she said. “Mr. Hildebrand told me and Kendall the play, that she was going to fake bunt, but keep the bunt there a little longer and Avery was going to go and on the throw above the pitcher’s head I would go for it. We had it all planned out. We did a whole practice about it.” 

The Woodies added an insurance run two batters later when Shyann Higinbotham beat the shift her father put on and poked an RBI single into short centerfield.

Schalick (14-5)	001 000 0-	1	2	5
Woodstown (14-7)	000 012 x-	3	6	2

Pennsville 14, Pitman 4

PENNSVILLE – Pennsville coach Beth Jackson was a little concerned about playing Pitman for a third time, especially since the Panthers handed her team one of its four losses early in the season and the last meeting was a nailbiter, but the Eagles put those fears to rest with three runs in each of the first two innings and opened a 10-2 lead after four.

Graillyn Weber went 3-for-5 with two RBIs and Avery Watson had three RBIs to lead the Eagles’ offense. Watson had a two-run double in the second inning and the walk-off RBI single with two outs in the sixth. Weber had an RBI triple in the fourth.

Kylie Harris had two hits and two RBIs, Sawyer Simmons had a pair of hits and Mak Widener had two RBIs.

Savannah Brewer-Palverento battled through the day to give the Eagles a complete game. She gave up nine hits, just two earned runs and struck out three.

“They played well,” Jackson said. “The energy was great. They hit the ball. They took advantage of some mistakes Pitman made out in the field.

“The reality is anybody can win on any given day. It doesn’t matter what seed you are, it doesn’t matter how your regular season went, you have to win that game in hand. These games regardless of who you’re playing are different in the playoffs and you have to take each game seriously.”

The second-seeded Eagles (21-4), the winningest Pennsville softball team since 2014 (22-5), will host third-seeded Haddon Twp. in the semifinals Wednesday. The 2015 team also won 21 games.

Pitman (11-10)	110 020-	4	10	7
Pennsville (21-4)	332 204-	14	11	2