DUBOIS — It’s often said great teams find ways to win when not playing their best, and that’s exactly what the DuBois Central Catholic softball team did Monday as it captured yet another District 9 Class A championship with a 6-2 victory against rival Elk County Catholic at Heindl Field.
Neither team was at its best for the early 11 a.m. wakeup call on a beautiful Memorial Day morning, as they combined for eight errors and several baserunners mistakes. All those errors led to only two of the eight runs scored in the game being earned.
And in the end, it was the top-seeded Lady Cardinals (18-3) who made the fewer miscues and capitalized on ECC’s as they scored six runs (5 unearned) between the third and sixth innings on five errors to come away with the win.
Rylee Kulbatsky proved to be a steadying force for DCC, as she entered the game in the circle in the top of the third with the Lady Cardinals trailing 1-0 and ECC having runners on first and second with one out.
She promptly got Lydia Anderson to fly out to shallow center, where Kayley Risser made the catch before gunning down Lucy Klawuhn, who tried to tag up and take third, for an inning-ending double play. That throw proved key, as ECC’s Emily Mourer was on deck and eventually led off the next inning with a double.
Central Catholic carried that momentum into the bottom of the third, where it coupled one hit around three ECC errors to score three unearned runs against Mourer in a huge momentum swing in a span of a short period of time. All three runs in the inning scored on back-to-back errors with two outs.
Elk County managed to get back within one at 3-2 on an unearned run of its own in the fifth, but the Lady Crusader defense let Mourer down again in the sixth as DCC plated three more unearned runs to all but put the game away.
That proved to be more than enough support for Kulbatsky, who tossed the final 4 2/3 innings to get the win. She allowed one unearned run on two hits while striking out three in relief of Melia Mitskavich.
The district title is DCC’s fourth Class A crown in a row back to 2019 around the lost COVID season of 2020 and the Lady Cardinals’ seventh in the last nine D-9 tournaments dating to 2014. The only other school to win a D-9 title in that stretch is ECC, which won it in 2015 and 2018. That 2015 ECC squad won a state title.
“It’s hard to beat anybody with five errors,” said ECC coach Eric Weisner. “That’s what I told the girls out there. You can compete with any team in the state, but if you’re giving away free outs, it’s hard to compete with anybody. They understand that, but they didn’t quit or hang their heads. They still battled the entire game. So, I’m proud of them for that.
“One of the goals this year was to play in this game (D-9 finals), and we did. The outcome was a little different than what we had anticipated, but the girls played hard and I thought we put the bat on the ball pretty decently. They made a lot of good plays and we didn’t.”
Elk County, which lost to DCC by scores of 9-0 on March 24 and 18-4 on April 12 in the regular season, jumped on Mitskavich for a run in the first to take the early lead.
Klawuhn drew a leadoff walk and took second on a wild pitch before tagging and going to third on a fly ball. Anderson then ripped a single to left to plate Klawuhn to make it 1-0.
The score remained that way as Mourer worked around a leadoff error in the bottom of the first before both starters had 1-2-3 second innings.
Elk County then tried to make some noise in third as Klawuhn and Weisner each singled with one, which spelled the end for Mitskavich. Heigel turned to Kulbatsky, and the Lady Cardinals promptly turned the 8-5 double play to end the inning.
Coming off the high of that play, Lady Cardinal Lexi Berta reached on an error to open the bottom of the third. After a strikeout, Kali Franklin singled before Klawuhn made a nice play on a ball hit up the middle by Jessy Frank to get a forceout at second.
Frank swiped second before Risser reached on a two-out error that allowed Berta to come home to make it 1-1. Mitskavich followed and reached on a second straight error that saw both Frank Risser come home to put DCC up 3-1. Mourer finally got out of the inning with a strikeout.
Mourer then led off the fourth with a double, but more base running woes hurt ECC as courtesy runner Sarah Hasselman was thrown out trying to take third when Sydney Alexander reached on an error. Central quickly got out of the inning from there.
Central tried to put together a two-out rally in the bottom of the inning, as Berta and Lydia Morgan each singled with two away. However, Mourer snagged a hard comebacker off the bat of Franklin and threw to first for the final out.
Elk County then cut its deficit in half in the fifth when Caitlyn Vollmer reached on a leadoff error and her courtesy runner, Mackenzie Bille, scored on a two-out double to left-center by Weisner to make it a 3-2 game. Weisner was 2-for-3 on the day.
That’s as close as ECC got though, as Kulbatksy retired the last seven batters she faced in the game.
Meanwhile, her offense tacked on three more big insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth.
Rose Whipple, DCC’s lone senior, reached on an error to open the inning and hustled her way to second. Freshman Maggie Mauthe came on as a pinch runner as Marina Hanes bunted her to third.
That brought Lauren Davidson to the plate, and she drew a walk. Davidson promptly took off for second, but realizing she was going to be out, pulled up and got caught in a rundown.
Mauthe then took off for the plate and found herself in a rundown of her own as DCC threw to the plate. Unfortunately, for the Lady Crusaders, an error during that rundown allowed Mauthe to score as Davidson took second.
Berta followed with a single that plated Davidson, while Berta later scored on a two-out hit by Franklin to set the eventual final score at 6-2.
Franklin, Berta and Morgan all had two hits for DCC, with Franklin and Berta collecting the Lady Cardinals’ lone RBIs in the win.
DuBois Central Catholic now waits to play in the opening round of the PIAA playoffs on Monday against the WPIAL runner-up in the east half of the state brackets.
Elk County still has an opportunity to reach the state playoffs, as they play fifth-seeded Forest Area in the true-second place game today at a site to be determined. The winner of that contest gets the second state berth from District 9.
