Vital duo leads Linganore softball to regional championship

In Thursday’s postgame team photo, Linganore softball players Gracie Wilson and Leo Cline both kneeled in the front row, each holding a bottom corner of a freshly awarded regional championship plaque.

This was fitting, considering Wilson and Cline’s fingerprints, not to mention their footprints, were all over the victory that had just secured the hardware.

Wilson threw a three-hitter with 10 strikeouts, first baseman Cline threw out a runner at third and knocked in Wilson with the go-ahead run in the fifth and both players used aggressive base-running to generate precious runs in Linganore’s 4-2 win over visiting South Hagerstown in the Class 3A West Region I final.

Linganore (16-5) advances to the state quarterfinals, where it faces Marriotts Ridge on the road Friday, for the third straight season.

Wilson and Cline have been vital contributors on all three of those regional championship teams, and they prized their team’s ability to defend its crown Thursday, when they and Linganore’s other 12th-graders each took down their senior posters from a fence near their dugout after playing the final home game of their careers.

“We just wanted to keep it going,” Cline said. “And I definitely did not want to go home [without the title].”

University of Maryland-bound Wilson — whose work in the pitchers circle is often overshadowed by her hitting, speed and exceptional defense — was throwing well enough to put the Lancers in position to win. She leaned on her screwball, maintained poise with runners on base and showed the kind of moxie that let her battle back from a 3-0 count for a strikeout in the fifth.

“Gracie’s great. Obviously we love her in center field,” said Lancers coach Andrea Poffinberger, who threw all three of her pitchers — Caitlin Jacobs and Rachel Battaglia are the others — during Linganore’s two regular-season wins over the Rebels. “But we have the luxury to move her in here. It was nice to be able to throw in Gracie in this game.”

Unfortunately for the Lancers, South Hagerstown pitcher Madi Wade was also enjoying a strong outing. Scattering seven hits and striking out seven, she kept Linganore’s prolific lineup from erupting.

“We did not hit as well as we typically do,” said Poffinberger, who credited Wade’s pitching for that issue and did see her team get some key hits. “I told them, we have to hit better, but you did a really nice job of taking advantage of things that we needed to on the base path.”

Wilson set the base-running tone in the first inning, scoring the game’s first run from first base on, of all things, a dropped third strike with two outs. Linganore’s Lilly Trunnell alertly sprinted to first when the ball got past the catcher, and the ensuing throw to first led to an error that allowed Wilson to score.

Trunnell gave the Lancers a 2-0 lead in the fourth, when she belted a leadoff double to left-center and sprinted home when a pitch got past the catcher.

Wilson’s speed was on display again with two outs in the fifth, when she hit a standup triple to right-center, bringing Cline to the plate with the game tied at 2.

Cline, who switched to slap hitting after going hitless in her first two at-bats, lifted a fly ball that the center fielder didn’t seem to get a good read on. It fell to the grass without hitting her glove.

Wilson scored with ease, and Cline slipped after rounding first but regained her footing and went to second.

“I face-planted going around first base,” she said. “And I was like, ‘I need to get up.’”

Cline’s exciting journey around the base path wasn’t over. She stole third, drew an errant throw as she slid, got up and scored an insurance run.

“I saw [the catcher] bobble it a little bit, and I knew that I could get there. I was feeling a little fast today,” she said. “And then I just got up and went home.”

Granted, Cline didn’t think her speed rivaled Wilson’s.

“I couldn’t do it like Gracie,” she said. “Gracie’s something else.”

Wilson did appreciate Cline’s assist in a 4-3-5 double play for the first two outs in the fifth, when the Rebels had already scored two runs to tie the game.

After getting the putout at first, Cline saw South Hagerstown’s lead runner had rounded third. She promptly fired to third baseman Autumn Rinehart, who made the tag.

“She’s got a cannon,” Poffinberger said of Cline, who also threw out a runner at second on a fielder’s choice in the second. “We’re going to miss her.”

But Cline, Wilson and the rest of Linganore’s seniors have at least one more game left in their careers.

“It feels really good,” Wilson said. “We came a long way since the beginning of the season.”