For more than half of Thursday’s WPIAL Class 5A semifinal between Thomas Jefferson and North Hills, it was a vintage pitcher’s duel.
Through four innings, there were just four hits from both sides as TJ had just managed its first hit of the game against Abigail Sutton. Things quickly changed from there when the Jaguars came alive in the bottom of the fifth with three hits and three runs, putting them in position to clinch a spot in the district championship.
But then, it was North Hills that awakened, and the Indians wouldn’t be denied until they put up five runs in a furious 5-3 comeback victory that sent the No. 11 Indians to the WPIAL championship against top-seeded Shaler.
“I thought that both teams played a really solid game,” North Hills coach Libby Gasior said. “I think it was well-played on both sides of the ball. It was one of the cleaner games that I’ve seen. Going into the fifth or sixth, you had that feeling where somebody was going to get heartbroken. As a coach, you don’t want it to be your team, but they played so well, you don’t really want it to be them either. But we stepped up and did what we needed to do late to get the win.”
After going down 3-0, North Hills (12-7) led the top of the sixth off with a solo shot that Emma Culver crushed over the left field wall. Later on with two outs, Lily Adamski singled to pull another run back and make the deficit 3-2 going into the home half of the inning.
The No. 2 Jaguars (17-4) went down quickly before pitcher Aubrey Shaffer was one out away from sending her team to the title game, but McKenna Cote flipped the script with a two-run double that gave NH its first lead of the day.
Emma Sutton added an RBI single in the next at-bat, putting the Indians ahead 5-3 before Sutton shut the door on a frantic TJ offense.
“We started too late with the offensive attack, and we were just jumping,” TJ coach Heidi Karcher said. “We didn’t have patience in that last inning where we had a good part of our lineup that’s been hitting up, but we went down 1-2-3 too quickly. It is what it is right now. We just have to bounce back and get ready to play Tuesday.”
TJ will take on Baldwin to determine PIAA tournament seeding on Tuesday.
Shaffer was tagged with the loss in the circle, going the distance and surrendering nine hits and five earned runs while striking out six and walking six. TJ finished with just five hits as Rylee Nemchek had two RBIs and Rylann Donohue drove in the other run.
For North Hills, Sutton earned the win, allowing five hits and three earned runs over the full seven innings. She struck out three batters and walked one. Offensively, four of their players managed all nine of their hits as Adamski led all batters with three and the trio of Culver, Sutton and Cote each added two.
Cote led the Indians with two RBIs while Adamski, Culver and Sutton each drove one in.
Adamski started the game with a single, but neither team mustered another baserunner in the first inning.
North Hills then put the pressure on in the second, but Shaffer and the Jaguars worked out of a jam to keep the game scoreless.
Culver and Sutton singled with a long walk from Cote in between to load the bases with just one out, but Shaffer fired back with her third strikeout of the game before Adamski flew out to left to end the threat.
On the other side, Sutton remained dialed in during the bottom of the second, picking up her first strikeout and keeping the Jaguars off the base paths again.
Shaffer responded well after allowing a hit in the first two frames, blanking the Indians in just 10 pitches to turn the third over to the home side. But Sutton matched her effort with three outs in 10 pitches to keep her no-hitter going through three innings of play.
Audrianna Baumgardner drew a walk for the Indians in the fourth, but no one could move her over from first to threaten the Jaguars. Then, with one down in the home half of the inning, it was Sophia Janosko who gave TJ its first hit of the game with a single up the middle. But again, nothing came of it, leaving it scoreless after four with just four hits total.
Things finally opened up in the bottom of the fifth when Zoie DeCostro singled to begin the frame. Madden Stanek drew a walk before the Jaguars found some two-out lightning starting with an RBI single from Donohue.
Nemchek then followed that up with a two-run double to give Thomas Jefferson life, and spirits remained high even when she was tagged out taking off to third for the final out of the inning.
TJ’s three-run lead lasted just two pitches. Shaffer threw a ball before Culver barreled her home run to inject some life into North Hills. From there came the two-out RBI single from Adamski and then RBIs from Cote and Sutton in the top of the seventh to cap off the scoring at 5-3 in favor of NH.