MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown High softball team will play for a sectional championship after defeating visiting Brooke 11-3 in six innings in an elimination game Monday evening on ISS Field at Mylan Park.
The Mohigans (18-9) rode the left arm of junior pitcher Micah Wilson, who tossed a complete-game shutout in the victory but had to overcome a slow start as it was the Bruins (7-17) who got on the scoreboard first.
In the top of the first inning, Brooke’s Madison Brown roped the first of her three hits on the night through the infield and later came around to score on an error in the outfield for a 1-0 advantage.
“Our girls just stay the course,” MHS coach Lori Lipscomb said. “They can get behind, but they don’t get down. Even if we’re struggling a little bit, they’ve got fight.”
Morgantown responded in the bottom of the second inning with three runs thanks to an RBI single by catcher Abigail Harki, a run-scoring groundout by Maddie Wisman and a sacrifice bunt by Anne Robinson.
Brooke did not stay down for long, however, and plated two runs in the top of the third on a two-run double by pitcher Alexa Foresha to tie the game 3-3.
Despite not seeing Foresha in the team’s two meetings this season, Morgantown’s hitters were able to adjust to her pitches and scored three runs in the bottom of the third and then two more in the bottom of the fourth.
“We’ve done a good job of making adjustments after seeing a pitcher a couple of times,” Lipscomb said. “She was a good pitcher, we hadn’t seen her the first two times we played them so we needed to make some adjustments.”
Wilson, meanwhile, had dialed in and mowed through the bottom of Brooke’s batting order. The Bruins’ top three batters — Brown, Emilee McKinney and Foresha — had five of the team’s seven hits on the night, scored all three runs and had both RBI. The four through nine spots in the order were a combined 2-for-17 against Wilson with eight strikeouts.
“She’s probably not throwing 100%, but she’s still getting the job done for us,” Lipscomb said of Wilson. “You’ve got to take advantage of the bottom of the order. She stepped up and that gave us momentum.”
Three more Morgantown runs in the bottom of the sixth inning brought about a premature end to the contest as the Mohigans won via mercy rule, 11-3.
Wilson, Harki, Kaye Larimer and Liz Alsop all had three hits for MHS. Harki had three RBI while Wilson and Grace Robinson, who hit an inside-the-park home run in the fourth inning, each had two.
For Brooke, Brown had three hits and scored two runs and Foresha had the two-run double while striking out four in the circle. To get to Monday’s game, the Bruins had to knock off Wheeling Park on the road in an elimination game last week.
“To go down to (Wheeling Park’s) home field and knock them out of contention for sectionals is a huge victory for us,” said first-year Brooke coach Tom Diserio. “We were riding that coming down here and we came out early and put it to them. We left everything on the field and I can’t ask anything more from them.”
Morgantown will play John Marshall in the Class A Region 1, Section 1 final today in Glen Dale. MHS and JM split two regular-season meetings, although MHS would have to beat the Monarchs twice to advance to regionals.
“We beat them before, we can play with them,” Lipscomb said. “If we play defense and get our bats going like we did (Monday), then the opportunity is there.”
Morgantown 11, Brooke 3, 6 innings
Bro 102 000 — 3 7 1
MHS 033 203 — 11 15 1
BROOKE — Brown 3 2 3 0; McKinney 2 1 1 0; Foresha 3 0 1 2; Bone 2 0 0 0; McQuiston 3 0 1 0; Wood 3 0 0 0; Lippoli 3 0 1 0; Dipallo 3 0 0 0; Moore 3 0 0 0. Totals 25 3 7 2.
MHS — Alsop 4 2 3 0; G. Robinson 3 2 1 2; Peterson 4 2 2 0; Wilson 4 3 3 2; Harki 3 1 3 3; Larimer 4 1 3 1; Wisman 3 0 0 1; A. Robinson 1 0 0 1; B. Robinson 3 0 0 0. Totals 29 11 15 10.
2B — Brooke: Foresha. Morgantown: Alsop, Peterson, Wilson, Harki.
HR — Morgantown: G. Robinson.
WP — Wilson 6 ip, 3r, 7h, 1bb, 8k.
LP — Foresha 5.2ip, 11r, 15h, 2bb, 4k.
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