PIAA SOFTBALL: Mid Valley looks ahead, not back, in state championship game
Jun. 16—Three more feet and no one's asking the question of Mid Valley: What did you learn from losing the state title game in 2021?
That's how far shortstop Lindsey Jason's sixth-inning, 218-foot blast came from leaving Penn State's Beard Field, two years of what-ifs in its wake.
It would have been a go-ahead, three-run homer in the bottom of the fifth inning in the 5-3 loss to Mount Pleasant. Instead, Mid Valley was left with the silver medal, and stinging memories of a game it led, 2-0, after one inning.
Haunting? Could be, but instead the Spartanettes look at it as nothing but motivation.
"Maranda (Runco) is going to go out there and throw the best game of the year, and we're going to play solid defense behind her," Mid Valley coach Mike Piercy said on the heels of Tuesday's 8-1 semifinal win over Palisades. "We're gonna put the ball in play, put pressure on them and we're gonna come across with some runs. Then we're gonna win the state title."
Confident words for a team that will face a daunting challenge from one of the best pitchers in the state, at least numbers-wise when it takes on Juniata in the PIAA Class 3A championship Friday at 1:30 p.m. back at Beard Field.
Juniata southpaw Liz Gaisior has fanned 413 batters in 26 games, eight of those games with 18 or more. She tossed three perfect games, three other no-hitters and is coming off a 20-strikeout performance against Jamestown in the other semifinal.
It's also the first trip past the District 6 tournament for Juniata, a journey that, while it ended in disappointment for Mid Valley, also is familiar to Spartanettes' seniors Runco, Kat Davis, Courtney Rebar and Madison Kizer, and junior Chiara Zavislak, all of whom were starters in the 2021 final.
"I think the five of us, the seniors and Chiara, we're going to enjoy those moments because we've already been there," said Rebar, who matched her season production of extra-base hits with four over the last four games. "I think we'll enjoy it a little more than last time.
"I think last time, we were a little anxious two years ago, because we are so young as a team. But now I think we know that we are able and capable to do that."
Two years ago, after losing her freshman campaign to the COVID-19 pandemic, Runco was a bursting-on-the-scene standout, the eventual Pennsylvania Class 3A player of the year. It was also her first time under the statewide microscope.
She was facing a potent lineup of four Division I college players and two more with Division II futures. That lineup included five left-handed hitters, and Runco's curveball wasn't effective, staying over the plate where Mount Pleasant could get after it.
That hasn't been the case this postseason. Each of the last two games, Runco's escaped one-out, bases-loaded jams, the first in the quarterfinal against Forest Hills, which already led, 2-1, in the sixth. The latter came in Tuesday's second inning against Palisades, when the Pirates loaded the bases only to come up empty.
"I think we learned to always stay up," Runco said. "Our sophomore year, we did get down on ourselves and we're like, 'Oh no,' when we were down. But this year, we got down and we stayed up. We were loud and we scored some back."
More experienced, wiser and better, Runco's ERA is 0.65, the Villanova recruit slashing her number by more than half over the past two seasons.
"For me, I'm like, 'Wow, I get to play the biggest game of my life again,'" Runco said. "So it's just really exhilarating. I'm so excited to play.
"What you learn the first time from these games is just base hits. We need base hits. Sophomore year, we did have base hits, but we also were hitting them right to them. If I get an at-bat, and I'm hopeful that I can, I won't pop up like last time."
The bottom of the first in the 2021 final started with Runco hitting a first-pitch, mile-high fly ball. Nerves, she thinks.
At-bats like that have been rare this season for Runco, who has 47 career homers, 18 this year and three in her last four at-bats. Two other fly balls drove outfielders to the fence. She also has been walked intentionally five times in the last two games, once with the bases loaded. Mount Pleasant also walked Runco intentionally in the fifth and seventh, stranding five in those two innings.
Mid Valley has moved on, adding another notch on the learning curve.
"It shows us that anything can happen," Runco said. "Sophomore year, we'd been doing good all year and we lost that game, unfortunately.
"But we got a redemption round. We just have to be calm and collected."
Piercy hopes past experience can be put to good use.
"I think until you're there, you don't really understand the gravity of the game," Piercy said. "And these five kids, five kids who have been there, they're turning the page. They're ready for the next game.
"It's tough to replace that experience, and we have five starters that have that and they're hungry to win this one on Friday."
Contact the writer:
570-348-9100, ext. 5437
@mmyersTT on Twitter
