Lady ‘Cats Lose Heartbreaker 1-0 to Mifflinburg

MIFFLINBURG — It was a game that lived up to its billing, the top two teams in the Heartland Conference playing for the likely league softball crown. Rivals Mifflinburg and Central Mountain, each with one league loss, collided in a classic late season game and the home team came out on top by a 1-0 score.

Emily Strouse was the hard-luck loser for the visiting Lady Wildcats. The game was scoreless into the bottom of the sixth when Mifflinburg used an infield error, a passed ball and a single to plate the game’s only run.

Central Mountain four times had runners in scoring position but could not get the clutch hit. CM was held to four hits, two of them from Madison Brown.

The Lady Wildcats will try and bounce back against rival Jersey Shore, Central Mountain’s final regular season game tomorrow at home at 4:30 p.m. The Lady Bulldogs are 6-2 in the Heartland, 7-3 overall. ‘Shore knocked off Central Mountain in their first meeting by a 2-1 score on April 21.

Central Mountain is now 16-3 overall, 11-2 in the Heartland. Mifflinburg moves to 11-1 in the conference with two league games remaining, Tuesday at home with Midd-West (0-9) and Thursday at Selinsgrove (1-7). Mifflinburg’s only league loss had been at Central Mountain by a 3-2 score on April 5.

Mid-week this week is the cutoff date for the District 6 tournament. Unofficially it appears Central Mountain would be a number two seed behind Mifflin County (15-5). State College (9-6) is a likely three seed, Altoona (9-9) the four seed. The district semifinals are scheduled for Wednesday, May 25 at the home field of the higher seeded teams. The district final is set for June 1 on the Penn State campus.