Millionaires Too Hot For Spartans

Williamsport’s Melissa Baer allows one hit for her 10th shutout of the season.

Wyoming Valley West’s Ashley Carver prepares to turn a double play as Williamsport’s Jessica Stone is out at second base during the District 2 Class 4A Softball Championship game.

S.John Wilkin/The Times Leader

WILKES-BARRE TWP. — The weather wasn’t the only thing hot on Thursday at King’s College’s Betzler Fields.
Wyoming Valley West ran into a sizzling pitcher and a scorching Williamsport team as its playoff run came to an end.
Williamsport advances to the PIAA Class 4A Championship with a 4-0 win over the Spartans for its 13th straight victory.
The Spartans (12-5) won’t advance to the state tournament, but since Williamsport (17-4) is from District 4, they did grab their first District 2 title since 1984.
“I am pretty damn proud of my kids,” Valley West coach George Wilson said. “It’s tough to go out this way, but there are a lot of other teams from District 2 that didn’t get this far and I am proud of them for that.”
Led by Melissa Baer’s 10th shutout of the season – a one-hit, eight strikeout masterpiece – the Millionaires advanced to the state tournament for the first time since 1999, when the team was state runner-up to Shippensburg.
The only hit Baer allowed was an infield single by pitcher Jess Ras in the top of the fifth inning. She never faced more than four batters in an inning and only pitched to three batters in the second, third, fifth and sixth innings.
“(Baer) had her good game as usual and she’s really been on a roll,” said Williamsport coach Bob Loudenslager, who will end his 22-year coaching career at the end of this season. “Her strikeouts were down, but she kept them off-balanced where they weren’t getting hard hits. She did her job and has been fantastic.
“She has probably had the most effectiveness in these last 10 or 15 ballgames than any pitcher we have ever had and we have had some good pitchers here.”
Perhaps the most impressive numbers for Baer was the way she handled Spartan standout catcher Natalie Mitchell, who will be attending Division I University of Alabama-Birmingham in the fall on an academic and athletic scholarship. The senior entered the game with a .686 batting average, while striking out just twice all season. Despite her impressive average, Baer struck her out swinging in the first inning.
Mitchell got the best of Baer in her other two at bats by drawing walks.
“I knew she was a good batter so we just tried to keep her off-balanced and keep the ball away from her and don’t give her anything to hit,” Baer said.
The game was scoreless through two innings and looked like a pitcher’s dual was brewing as Baer fanned four through the first two frames, while Ras had two punch outs.
Then Ras got in trouble in the third. Hannah Person led off the inning with a single. The next batter Tamara Wagner was safe on an error, but then Janelle Lukens grounded into a double-play and it appeared that Ras was going to get out of the inning. But Amanda Mahaffey knocked in Person with a single before Porishira Wilson smacked a two-run home run to give her team a 3-0 lead.
The Millionaires tacked on another run in the bottom of the fourth on a run-scoring single by Person. After that, Ras settled down and didn’t allow another runner to reach base for the rest of the game.
“She gave up that one big hit, the home run and only two balls were hit hard,” Wilson added. “She pitched a good game. She had a little trouble with her location and got the ball up a little so we have to work on that with her in the future.”
The Spartans are only losing two seniors from this year’s squad, which had a collective batting average of above .300.
“Our future is bright,” Wilson noted. “We got a little taste of what it’s like to get to this level and hopefully they will pick up the pieces and we will be back next year.”