Lady Bucks Do It Again – Walk-Off Win for D4 Title

AdminMay 31, 2019Last Updated: May 31, 2019

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WILLIAMSPORT – The Bucktail High School softball team will go down in Bucktail sports lore. The Lady Bucks of coach Mike Poorman and staff guaranteed their place in western Clinton County sports history with a second straight, final inning walk-off win, Friday’s victory for the District 4 Class A championship.

For the second game in a row Bucktail (19-2) waited until its last at bat to leave Williamsport’s Elm Park a winner. The score was 4-3 Bucktail, the victory propelling the Lady Bucks into a PIAA first-round playoff game Monday, June 3 at 3 p.m. at Central Columbia High School. The opponent will be Old Forge (9-12), the District 2 champion. The Devils defeated Blue Ridge, 12-7, for their district title.

Bucktail trailed 3-1 into the bottom of the seventh, the top-seeded team’s last at-bat. But the never-quit Lady Bucks were up to the task.

With one out Julie Green singled. Rachel Goss came in as a pinch-runner and moved to second on a Tessa Cowfer single, two on, one out at that point. Both runners advanced to scoring position on a wild pitch as Emma Intallura was at bat. Intallura went down swinging for the second out. That brought up freshman leadoff hitter Jordan Burrows, hitless in her first three at-bats against Montgomery’s veteran pitcher Emily Snyder. Burrows worked the count full and with the game on the line drove a pitch into right-centerfield, her single scoring Goss and Cowfer to tie the game at 3-3; the ever-hustling Burrows advanced to third as Cowfer had collided with Raider catcher Shelby McRae at home plate.

Montgomery coach Chris Glenn questioned the Cowfer safe call at home and after all four umpires conferred, Cowfer was declared safe, the game tied.

But Bucktail was far from done. Emily Cross drew a walk, bringing up Myka Poorman who was given an intentional pass to load the bases. That brought up Emma Poorman who was 0-for-3 heading to the plate. She jumped on a Snyder pitch and drove it to second base where the second baseman bobbled it long enough for Poorman to beat out the throw at first as Burrows scored the winning run, setting the final at 4-3 Bucktail. And for the second game in a row it was bedlam for the Lady Buck players and the hundreds of Bucktail fans in the bleachers and along the fence down the right field line.

Bucktail had done what no school softball team had ever done, win a district title. It’s believed the first team title for the school since the Bucktail boys’ basketball team in 1989, a 30 year drought.

Coach Poorman was elated when interviewed on therecord-online afterwards (after accepting a congratulatory hug from his mother). “The team stayed with it,” he said, “against a strong pitcher” in Snyder, the hard-luck loser from Montgomery.

He had words of praise for his younger daughter Emma who hit what proved to be the game-winning groundball for the win. Poorman, taken out in the first inning in Bucktail’s 9-8 win over Galeton last Friday, went the distance this time, pitching a 4-hitter while striking out nine and walking only two. Coach Poorman noted it was “the first in weeks she was where she needs to be,” hitting her spots.

The younger Poorman is a freshman as is catcher Burrows who drove in the two tying runs in the last inning. Coach Poorman said Burrows leads off for a reason, “She puts the ball in play.” She certainly did with the game on the line with two outs and two strikes in the last of the seventh.

Both pitchers were solid. Snyder held a potent Bucktail lineup to eight hits (they bunched three of them in the decisive seventh). Burrows had a single and two RBIs, Cross with a swinging bunt single, Myka Poorman with a single, Green with two singles and Cowfer with two singles and Intallura with a single. The final three batters in the Buck lineup, Green, Cowfer and Intallura, totaled five of the eight hits. Green had scored Bucktail’s first run in the second; she singled with two outs, moved around on singles from Cowfer and Intallura and scored on a Montgomery misplay.

Montgomery’s runs had scored on Bucktail defensive breakdowns, but the Lady Bucks made the plays when the game was on the line. None was bigger than in the top of the seventh when the Raiders’ Jenna Waring led off with a single but was mowed down by catcher Burrows when trying to steal, Burrows with a strike to Cross at the second base bag.