Lady Hatters Beat Conestoga, Clinch Title Outright

BERWYN — You couldn't blame the Hatboro-Horsham High School softball team for having its mind in two places on Wednesday afternoon.

While the Lady Hatters were taking care of business with an 11-1 non-conference victory over Conestoga, of more interest was the Continental Conference game being played in Souderton.

Traveling on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on the way home from its win, Hatboro-Horsham players erupted into huge cheers with the news that Souderton had beaten Central Bucks South 6-3 to clinch an outright conference crown for the Lady Hatters. 

A grand slam in the second inning by Souderton's Paige Shelly broke a 2-2 tie to give the Indians a 6-2 lead that proved too much for CB South to overcome as Salina Allebach scattered six hits in six innings for the win and Meg Roynan finished off the save in the seventh. 

Hatboro-Horsham (15-3 overall) had concluded conference play with a 15-0 victory over Central Bucks West and an 11-3 record on Monday. CB South ended up at 10-4 and tied with Central Bucks East for second place after CB East edged Pennridge 3-2 on Wednesday.

Those results, combined with Neshaminy's 2-0 win over Pennsbury on Tuesday night in Suburban One League National Conference play, should help Hatboro-Horsham secure one of the top seeds in the District One tournament when that bracket is released on Thursday evening. 

The Lady Hatters host Garnet Valley Thursday at 3:30 p.m. and will make up an additional game Saturday afternoon with Bensalem, if the Owls sneak into the playoff field. 

Hatboro-Horsham continued its heavy hitting on Wednesday with 14 hits and built a 7-0 lead midway through the game at D'Ambrosio Park. 

Third baseman Daria Edwards (2-for-5, two RBIs) jump started the attack with a single and the first of her three runs scored in the first inning when first baseman Heather Lutz (2-for-4, a walk and two RBIs) followed with a double that just missed sailing over the fence. 

Edwards homered for two more runs later in the game.

Center fielder Jen Cader (2-for-4, one run) then keyed rallies with a pair of booming doubles in consecutive innings as the Lady Hatters scored three runs in the second and once more in the third to go ahead 5-0.

Hatboro-Horsham added two more runs in the fourth and four more in the seventh as Maria Spinosa (2-for-4, one run, one RBI), Jaynie Black (2-for-4, two runs, two RBIs) and Nicole Casagrand (2-for-3, one run, one sacrifice, one RBI) joined Edwards, Lutz and Cader with multi-hit performances.

Casagrand turned in another consistent pitching performance, allowing one unearned run, striking out two and giving up no walks for a seven-inning complete-game win. 

The JV Hatters came up short in a hard-fought game to Conestoga, losing 5-1. 

Back-to-back infield hits by Kayla Richard and Meghan Fitzgerald (2-for-4) in between a pair of wild pitches in the top of the third gave Hatboro-Horsham a 1-0 lead. 

The JV Hatters had missed a chance to score in the second when Emmy Rivkin was thrown out at home plate on a safety squeeze bunt by Charlotte Coulson for an inning-ending double play after Jessica Eble drilled a single to deep right to move Rivkin, who had walked, to third. 

Conestoga responded with a unearned run off pitcher Kaeli Simmons in the bottom of the third on a two-out bloop single to tie the game and squeezed home another run in the fourth to make it 2-1.

Hatboro-Horsham (7-11) didn't manage another hit after the third and three runs by Conestoga in the fifth broke the game open. 

The JV Hatters got two runners on in the sixth when Bria Cashman and Miranda Nish were hit by pitches and in the seventh when Coulson and Richard works counts for walks, but they couldn't come up with any more clutch hits.