Despite not piling up an impressive resume of statistics during her senior year playing basketball for the Lady Blue Devils, Danielle Riley was highly touted by head coach Nick Lovrich for possessing great leadership qualities.
Tuesday afternoon against Glendale, those qualities could not have been more evident as Riley overcame a two-strike count with two outs and singled in Leah Snyder and Emily Derr in the bottom of the seventh inning to give Bellwood-Antis softball their first victory of the season.
“It felt really good, because I struggle whenever I have two strikes on me,” Riley said. “I was so scared going up there with there already being two outs, but I\’m proud that I came through, and I\’m just proud of the team in general.”
As Riley overcame her own adversity by getting the base hit with two strikes on her, she helped the team overcome their own adversity by leading them to their first victory of the season after losing 16-0 in their previous contest.
“Dani Riley is a senior and we look to her for leadership, and she\’s put a lot of time in,” Bellwood-Antis Head Coach Alex Sitman said. “She\’s working extremely hard this year, and it was deserving that she got the big hit.”
If it had not been for some gritty performances earlier in the game, The Lady Blue Devils may not have been close enough for the last inning to matter.
Kristin Laing, who scored four of Glendale\’s seven runs, led off the game with a walk and scored on a miscommunication between catcher Tamara Askey and pitcher Emily Derr later in the inning. A walk, single and error later the bases were juiced and visions of the Claysburg rout were beginning to reappear.
However, Derr composed herself and got a strikeout coupled with a pop out to end the threat and avoid further damage.
Glendale starter Tiffany Twigg was unable to do the same when her own wildness put her into a predicament in the third inning.
Twigg walked Jenna Brown, hit Snyder with a pitch and proceeded to walk the next three batters to force in two runs. Reliever Stacey Yaworski fared no better as Askey greeted her with a double down the right-field line that scored two more.
“I think the big thing is that the girls just don\’t quit, regardless of what the score is, and today we were a little disappointed that we weren\’t being aggressive at the plate, but in the last couple innings we began to swing the bats like we wanted to hit the ball,” Sitman said.
The Lady Vikings recaptured the lead temporarily in the fourth inning with three runs to make the score 6-5, and they manufactured an insurance run with a walk, steal, ground out and sacrifice fly in the sixth inning.
The Lady Blue Devils nearly tied the game in the bottom of the inning when Riley walked and scored when Brown’s single was misplayed. Brown made it to third with no outs, but Yaworski stranded her there.
Riley\’s heroics were preceded by two-out singles by Snyder and Derr.
Bellwood-Antis will look to start a winning streak today as they travel to Moshannon Valley. First pitch is scheduled for 4:00 p.m.
Bellwood-Antis 8 Glendale 7
GLENDALE – Laing, ss, 1-4-1; McQuown, 1b, 3-0-0; Morrison, 2b, 3-1-2; Krise, rf, 2-0-0; Boulton, dp, 4-0-1; McGarvey, lf, 3-0-0; Budzinski, ph, 1-0-0; Dick, pr, 0-0-0; Peoples, c, 3-0-0; Horon, ph, 1-0-0; Edmiston, lf, 4-1-1; Matthews, 3b, 3-1-1; Twigg, p, 0-0-0; Yaworski, p, 0-0-0. TOTALS 28-7-6.
BELLWOOD-ANTIS – Weyant, cf, 2-1-0; Baldauf, ss, 3-1-0; Pfahler, 2b, 3-1-0; Askey, c, 4-0-1; Putt, rf, 3-0-0; Derr, p, 3-1-1; Riley, lf, 3-1-1; Brown, 3b, 2-1-1; Snyder, dp-rf, 2-2-1; Hamer, 1b, 1-0-0. TOTALS 26-8-5.
Glendale 120 301 0 7-6-3
Bellwood-Antis 005 001 2 8-5-4
3B: Laing
2B: Askey
RBI: Morrison 3, Boulton, Laing, McQuown, Askey 2, Riley 2, Baldauf, Pfhaler, Derr.
BB: Wigg 5, Yaworski 2, Derr 3.
SO: Wigg 4, Yaworski 2, Derr 3.
WP: Derr LP: Yaworski
