Perfection achieved as Neshannock wins PIAA Class 2A softball state title with 4-1 win over Conwell-Egan

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania – The weather was perfect at Penn State’s Beard Field on Friday. And the season was perfect for Neshannock, who defeated Conwell-Egan 4-1 to win the PIAA Class 2A softball state championship and wrap up a 26-0 season.

“It has just been a great season,” Neshannock head coach Jackie Lash said. “These girls have worked their butts off.”

Conwell-Egan put pressure on pitcher Addy Frye and the defense right out of the gate, loading the bases in the first inning before Frye was able to get a groundout to first to end the inning and keep the Eagles off the board.

Frye, a freshman who entered the game with an ERA of 0.82 and had struck out 172 hitters in 103 innings, admitted the stage affected her early on.

“I think I was a little nervous in the beginning,” Frye said. “I was trying to guide the ball more than just drive.”

The Lancers gave Frye a little room to breathe, as they went out and put up two runs in the bottom of the first on a ball that was hit by Hunter Newman that was called an error and an RBI single by Gabby Perod.

Conwell-Egan got a run across in the top of the third and the game remained 2-1 until the fifth inning, when freshman Gabby Quinn stepped to the plat for Neshannock with Newman, who had just doubled, standing on second.

After fouling off a couple of pitches, Quinn stepped into one and sent a drive to left center that cleared the wall for a two-run homer to give the Lancers a 4-1 lead.

“She was throwing strikes so I knew I couldn’t let any go by,” Quinn said. “My batting coach before I went out there said just swing through the ball. The first three pitches I had noticed myself trying to chop at it and I just let loose, and I swung through it.”

But the play that might have shaped the game the most was yet to come.

With two runners on and two outs in the top of the sixth, Conwell-Egan’s Bella Palmer hit a ball back up the middle that Frye knocked down. The pitcher picked up the ball and threw to third for the force out to end the inning because the runner was only about halfway to the base.

But after a lengthy discussion, the umpires decided that Neshannock shortstop Aaralyn Nogay had obstructed with the runner's ability to get to third base and therefore awarded her the base, loading the bases for the Eagles.

Frye came back out of the dugout and proceeded to strike out the next hitter to officially end the inning.

“It just made me want to get out of the inning,” Frye said. “It gave me the urge to throw harder.”

The fire with which Frye went out and handled business did not go unnoticed in the Neshannock dugout.

“If there is something that fires Addy up, the girls always say mad Addy is better than regular Addy,” Lash said. “Mad Addy showed it when we went back out.”

Frye remained fired up, as she went out and retired all three hitters in the seventh inning to end the game and clinch the state title.

As Lash has said throughout the season – and reiterated Friday – she doesn’t see either Frye or Quinn as a freshman. 

“I wish we could take out the grade level whenever you talk about these players,” Lash said. “Freshmen? Yeah, sure. But these girls have the softball IQ of some girls that are playing in college.”

Frye finished the game allowing just four hits and struck out three.

When the last hitter was up for Conwell-Egan and took a Frye delivery to right field to a waiting Katherine Nativio, the emotions of the day and the season snuck up on the head coach, who had been talking a few days ago about all of the practices this team had been through to prepare for this moment.

“I think I had a big lump in my throat,” Lash said.

Perfection will do that to a person.