Little League: Pittston Area softball wins in extra innings in state tournament

Pittston Area advanced the the winners bracket finals of the Pennsylvania Little League Major Softball tournament on Friday, scoring five times in the eighth inning and holding off West Point for a 7-5 victory at the Wellsboro Little League.

Pittston Area, the Section 5 and District 16 champions, will play at 5 p.m. Sunday against either Section 4 champ Indiana or Section 7 champ Caln Township. All games are at the Wellsboro Little League.

The eighth started with Pittston Area’s Lydia Luvender on second via the tiebreaker rule. She scored on a throwing error. Sophia Laudato added a two run single and Pittston Area picked up two more runs on a wild pitch and an error for a 7-2 lead.

Pittston Area was one out away from victory in the bottom of the eighth when West Point rallied with three runs. A groundout with runners on first and second ended the game.

Luvender doubled with one out in the first, but was stranded at second base. West Point threatened in the bottom of the inning with a pair of hits, but had a runner thrown out at home.

Pittston Area broke through in the second as Natalie McAndrew started the inning with an infield single and Ava Thomas followed with a single up the middle. The runners moved up a base on a wild pitch, and McAndrew scored on a groundout by Sophia Laudato. Laudato ran for Thomas and scored on a wild pitch for a 2-0 lead.

That was about the extent of the Pittston Area offense until the eighth aside from Izzie Kroski walking in the third inning and Ainsley Lear doing the same to start the fourth. West Point retired the next 11 batters in order after Lear walked.

West Point used an RBI single to pick up a run in the bottom of the second and had runners on second and third with one out. Thomas, though, ended the inning with a pair of strikeouts.

West Point had its first two batters reach base in the third inning. Pittston Area erased two runners at third on fielder’s choices and ended the inning with a popout. West Point also had a runner at third with no outs in the fourth, yet failed to score.

In the fifth, West Point had a runner on second with one out. Pittston Area third baseman Sara Basile speared a liner to her left for the second out and Thomas ended the threat with a strikeout.

West Point finally got the tying run with a two-out single in the bottom of the sixth to force extra innings. It then had a runner stranded at third in the seventh.