Central Mountain play-off run stopped by Shaler
By Tom Elling
BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP, PA – The Monday PIAA playoff game was billed as a low-scoring pitchers’ duel. It was all of that, visiting Shaler earning a 2-1 win over Central Mountain.
Shaler’s freshman pitcher Bria Bosilievac, coming off a brilliant 3-hit, 17 strikeout performance in the WPIAL consolation game against South Fayette (2-1), mirrored that performance against the Lady Cats holding a good-hitting Central Mountain team to one run on three hits. She was dominant again recording 16 strikeouts. walking two.
Central Mountain mounted very few threats and didn’t score until the last of the 7th on a solo homerun over the RF fence by Allison Lininger.
Adalyn McKeague was just as effective. The Wildcat righty allowed five hits; the biggest of which was a line drive leftfield two-run homerun off the bat of Emily Spears in the top of the second. Bethany Rodman had singled to leadoff the inning and was sacrificed to second. Spears jumped on the first offering by McKeague, giving the visitors all the runs they would need.
Coach Fred Caldwell lauded the effort of his team against one of the best pitchers they faced all season.
“She did a great job for them (Shaler); She was tough on our batters. But there was not one point in the game that I didn’t think we could pull it out.”
“We lost to an excellent and well-coached team,” the veteran coach added. “Addie (McKeague) was great She will always keep our team in the game. “We ended up 16-4. That’s a pretty good winning percentage.”
Caldwell added that he had hoped the game would go one more inning so he could get everyone on the bench an at-bat. “I told the team to be proud of their season.”
The home team committed an uncharacteristic four errors, but McKeague came through and the defense tightened to not allow any of those miscues to score. Central Mountain’s three hits included Lininger’s dinger, a 6th inning one-out double by Madisyn Wian and a 2nd inning infield hit legged-out by Kelsey Burrows.
