PIAA SOFTBALL: Mid Valley opponent boasts hot pitcher, hitting
Jun. 16—Big sticks, a hot pitcher and a team with a winning tradition.
That's what Mid Valley will face when it squares off with Mount Pleasant in the PIAA Class 3A softball championship game Friday at Penn State University's Beard Field.
Mary Smithkosky is on a 38-inning shutout run in the circle for Mount Pleasant, dating to the start of the WPIAL (District 7) playoffs.
Not primarily a strikeout pitcher, Smithkosky, who will play in Western Michigan's outfield next year, fanned 14 in a WPIAL quarterfinal win over Derry, and struck out eight against Bald Eagle Area in the Vikings' first state game.
During her hot streak, she's yielded only 14 hits, lowering her season ERA to 2.24. She is also a threat with the bat, batting .459 with 29 RBIs.
She's one of four highly touted players on her team, all of whom hit at the top of the order.
Junior center fielder Katie Hutter, the team's spark plug with 46 hits and a .548 average, has committed to the University of Akron.
Senior first baseman Courtney Poulich is a Liberty University commit. Of her 10 homers this season, half have been in the six-game postseason win streak, and she's knocked in 22.
She's homered three times in the last two games, a towering solo shot to seal a 4-0 win over Avonworth in the quarterfinals, and she banged two out of the park in the 13-0 rout of Punxsutawney in the West bracket final.
Impressive? Certainly.
Intimidating? Not in the eyes of Mid Valley coach Michael Piercy.
"You're not going to run into a bad team at this time of the year," Piercy said. 'Yeah, they have impressive numbers, but we expected to face off against one of the best teams in Western Pennsylvania and we are.
"They're definitely well polished. They're senior heavy. They have some experience there. But we really like our kid (Maranda Runco) on the mound and I feel like if our pitcher's on and our defense is playing well, it really doesn't matter who we're playing right now. We're going to be right in there."
That Punxsutawney game carried a bit of a revenge factor for the Vikings, who fell to the Chucks in the 2018 semis.
Poulich is not the only one with home run pop, as Smithkosky (2-run) and Haylie Brunson (2-run) also went deep in Monday's win.
Brunson, head coach Chris Brunson's daughter and another senior, is a University of Pittsburgh recruit who dislocated a finger on her throwing hand in an infield drill in the first round of the state tournament, yet remained in the lineup as the designated player. She leads the team with 39 RBIs and is a .550 hitter with 22 doubles.
Shortstop Hannah Gnibus, batting .446, went 3 for 4 in the semifinal and has committed to continue her softball career in the fall at Pitt-Johnstown.
In Monday's win over the Chucks, seven of the team's 13 hits went for extra bases.
But for all its success, the Vikings are trying to set a new standard. They are a win away from becoming the first Mount Pleasant team to win a WPIAL and state championship in the same season.
That's no easy task.
Since the PIAA playoffs began in 1975, only 11 teams from all of District 7 have entered the state tournament as a No. 1 seed and gone on to win it all. The last of those not to play in the state's highest classification was Vincentian (Class 1A, 2008).
The Vikings last state championship — as a third seed — came over another District 2 team with its own success story. Mount Pleasant defeated Tunkhannock, a finalist again this year, 5-3, to claim the Class 4A title in 2017.
Since then, the Vikings have dropped down a classification for the current two-year cycle, and this is the fourth straight season they've made it to at least the semifinal round, and their second final.
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