CB East Chases Lady Hatters' Softball Dream

WARMINSTER — It was a bittersweet Friday afternoon for my daughter Charlotte and this softball dad as we watched Central Bucks East outlast top-seeded Neshaminy, 4-2, for the PIAA District One 4-A championship at William Tennett High School.

When the announcer called out for the girls from both teams to "line up to receive your medals," it pushed my daughter — a junior outfielder on the Hatboro-Horsham varsity softball team — nearly over the edge.

"Dad, can we leave now?" asked Charlotte, the pain straining in her voice. 

She couldn't watch as these girls were rewarded with medals like the one she thought just a week earlier would be dangling from her neck at the end of district play.

The softball season and the dream of District One and PIAA 4-A championships may have ended for the Lady Hatters last weekend in a stunning, 3-2, 10-inning loss at home to CB East, but we were drawn back to Tennett High all week long as it hosted two semifinal games on Wednesday and Thursday and finally Friday's title match.

There were other young softball players crowding the hillsides and sidelines of the Tennett softball field throughout the week, like the young lady in her Upper Moreland attire that was seated on the grass, just to our left on a scorching hot Friday afternoon.

We watched as seventh-seeded CB East's magical ride to its first district title continued to unfold with 4-2 victories in back-to-back days over No. 3 Pennsbury and No. 2 Neshaminy, two of the heavyweight programs in Pennsylvania high school softball. 

Some things in sports are just hard to explain, but give the Patriots credit after they dispatched the top three teams in District One on the way to a championship. 

One of the ironies of Thursday's and Friday's victories, however, was the fact that CB East's celebrations after both of those games paled in comparison to Saturday's sudden-death win over Hatboro-Horsham.

Last Saturday, when the Patriots knocked off the three-time defending Suburban One League Continental Conference champions from HHHS, there were screeches of joy and players leaping into each others arms as one play made the difference between which team advanced and which squad started its summer vacation a win short of the state tournament.

When Daria Edwards' 10th-inning line drive was snared just before it hit the ground by CB East shortstop Jess Haug and turned from a walk-off single into a game-ending double play, it meant that one of the state's top teams would be missing the PIAA 4-A tournament for the first time since 2009.

Another of the paradoxes of Friday's game with Neshaminy was that Jess Haug had a similar play to her highlight-reel grab against Hatboro-Horsham. Only this time, the Patriot senior was diving to her left, instead of her right and came up inches short of making an inning-ending catch with her team ahead 4-1 in the sixth inning.

Jess Haug then jumped to her feet and threw the ball away, allowing the Redskins to cut CB East's lead in half. 

Only some high-wire act pitching from freshman reliever Kayla Ventura allowed the Patriots to escape with the lead. Ventura then closed out a one-two-three seventh to combined with fellow freshman Theresa Haug, who pitched five shootout innings, for the win.

It was the second year in a row that CB East had knocked Neshaminy out of district play. Last year, it was a stunning 3-1 victory by an 18th-seeded club the second round that ousted the then-second-ranked Redskins from the tournament and ended Neshaminy's season. 

That CB East team lost to last year's district champion North Penn in the next round and fell to Spring-Ford a few days later in the consolation tournament won by Hatboro-Horsham for the fifth and final state playoff berth. 

But the 12-11 Patriots had their appetite wetted enough to put qualifying for state play and winning the district title among their goals for 2013. 

CB East couldn't claim another goal — winning the brutal Continental Conference crown — as Hatboro-Horsham held off six playoff-bound squads in the eight-team configuration, finishing a game ahead of defending state champion Central Bucks South and the Patriots.

In fact, the Lady Hatters clobbered CB East twice in the regular season by a combined 16-8 count, continuing a domination that dated back to 2010 and had reached seven consecutive victories.

Which made Hatboro-Horsham's exit and CB East's subsequent district title almost too much to bear for my uber-competitive daughter.

But rather than aim any of our ire at the feel-good performance of the amazing Patriots, the real target of frustration are the tournament organizers from District One and the PIAA.

Plain and simply, the best 16 teams will not be competing next week in the state 4-A tournament and both district and PIAA officials are to blame.

Organizers were to be commended for including six deserving teams from the Continental Conference in district play. But then they sabotaged this group's postseason chances by matching them almost exclusively against each other from the second round forward. 

CB South's reward for a fine season and that runner-up finish in conference, which included two wins over arch-rival Hatboro-Horsham, was to meet a dangerous North Penn team in the second round. 

Shockingly, North Penn knocked the defending state champs out of the tournament with a five-inning, 15-3 mercy-rule victory.

Four Continental Conference teams advanced to the quarterfinals, but instead of staggering these talented teams in the bracket, district officials matched them head-to-head in the quarterfinals, ending any chance for two of them to qualify for state play.

North Penn ruined Pennridge's season when a misplayed fly ball led to the only runs in the Maidens' 2-0 triumph, ending the season of a Ram squad that was capable of making a deep run in the state tournament.

And then CB East's win over Hatboro-Horsham ended the senior-laden Lady Hatters' hopes of a fourth state title game appearance in eight years. 

In the past two years, a loss in the District One quarterfinals wouldn't have ended a team's season.  

But this was the year that PIAA organizers decided that only four squads from the state's most competitive district would advance instead of the previous five. 

Perhaps the fact that the past two state title games were all-District One affairs — with Continental Conference teams from Hatboro-Horsham and CB South winning gold medals — led to a backlash of jealousy against District One teams?

To make matters worse, three of the four teams from District One — the first, second and fourth seeds from CB East, Neshaminy and North Penn — are bracketed in the top half of the state draw.

There is no chance of a similar repeat of 2011 when Hatboro-Horsham beat Pennsbury in the finals of both district and state play. 

Neshaminy and CB East could potentially meet again in the semifinals.

Pennsbury, which beat North Penn 5-0 in the District One third-place game Friday at Hatboro-Horsham High School on a Val Buehler no-hitter, may have the easier route to the 4-A title game, without having to face another District One team until the final.

State officials may have almost ensured a more regionally balanced championship encounter, but this is one softball dad that will be surprised if it isn't one of those District One survivors and maybe even another Continental Conference squad holding up a championship trophy on June 14 at Penn State.