The home plate umpire told Knoch softball players to stop banging on the roof and walls of the dugout late in Friday’s game at Derry.
The sudden stoppage of play caused come eye rolls and shoulder shrugs from the visiting Knights.
“We can be so loud sometimes,” Knoch junior Kaila Purcell said.
Knoch decided to make noise on the field instead.
Held scoreless for five innings, Knoch erupted for 11 unanswered runs across the final two innings — seven in the seventh — to rout Derry, 11-3, in a Section 1-4A game at Grandview Elementary School field.
Knoch (5-3, 5-2), which has won four of five, used three pitchers and got offensive production from the top and bottom of its order to beat the Trojans (5-2, 4-1), who had won five straight.
“We were louder on the field after that,” said Purcell, who went 2 for 4 with a double and five RBIs and also earned the pitching win with two scoreless innings of relief. “Once one of us gets a hit, it gets everyone going.”
Derry built a 3-0 lead off of Knoch sophomore starter Emersyn Jones on the strength of a solo home run from sophomore Mari Razpotnik, a run-scoring single from junior Haylee Myers and an RBI groundout by junior Lylah O’Donnell.
Myers was in a groove in the pitching circle, striking out six and allowing only one hit and three baserunners into the sixth.
A shutout was in the works, but that is when things began to unravel for the Trojans.
“You don’t play six innings,” Derry coach John DePalma said. “You have to play seven.”
Senior leadoff hitter Elizabeth Danik, who went 4 for 4, started the Knights’ sixth with a single, and senior Lindsey Wise followed with a base hit.
Two batters later, senior Alena Tekely drove in a run with a single, and junior Makenna Brailey ripped a two-out double to cut the deficit to one.
The next hitter, Purcell, knocked in two more runs with a single to give the Knights a 4-3 edge.
After Derry went peacefully in the sixth — Purcell came on after an inning of middle relief from hard-throwing senior Marlee Fraser — the Knights went to work in the seventh to add on and put it out of reach.
“(Myers’) spin was gone, and that allowed us to start hitting,” Knoch coach Chris Gardner said. “There is no quit in these girls. We have good bats, 1 through 9.”
Wise knocked in a run with a single, another crossed on a wild pitch and, after two walks, Purcell smacked a two-out, three-run double. Jones and junior Olyvian Foster followed with back-to-back RBI singles to make it 11-3.
“I came into the game in a pressure situation, and I feel like I do well when that happens,” Purcell said. “(Myers) kind of lost her rise ball, and we started to time her better.”
Junior Kali Henigin singled to start the Derry seventh, but Purcell got a strikeout and two popouts to end it.
“We were working north-to-south, but after 105 pitches, we started hammering it inside,” DePalma said. “Haylee is a junior, and she’s still learning. She is an awesome pitcher. We’re young. We have to find girls that can compete. They aren’t used to those kind of situations.”
Razpotnik went 2 for 3 and also pitched the end of the seventh, getting the final out for Derry.
Senior Francesca DePalma had two doubles for the Trojans.
As if the Knoch bats weren’t enough, Derry had to face three pitchers with differing styles.
“They have so many arms over there,” DePalma said. “They tried to offset our girls. We don’t see many like Marlee who throw 60 (mph). They mixed it up.”
This was the first time Knoch used three pitchers in a game this season.
“Maybe we’ll look into doing that more often,” Gardner said. “We have three great pitchers. If one is dealing, we’ll leave her in. It’s nice to have options.”
Jones struck out six and walked one in four innings. Wise finished 2 for 4 for the Knights.