HAMPDEN, Maine — After striking out and grounding out in her first two at-bats, Penobscot Valley High School eighth grader Abby Farley made some adjustments before coming to the plate with two runners on and two out and her team trailing 3-2 in the sixth inning of their Class D softball semifinal against Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook.
Those adjustments paid off as Farley grounded the ball down the first base line and it glanced off the glove of the first baseman and rolled down the right field line for a two-run triple that gave the Howlers a 4-3 victory at the Hampden Academy Field on Saturday.
Second seed PVHS, 14-0, will now take on fifth seed Machias, 12-3, in Tuesday’s 7 p.m. Class D North championship game at Coffin Field in Brewer.
Third seed Southern Aroostook wound up 11-5.
Machias has ousted PVHS from the playoffs the last two seasons and both games were in Howland.
Emma Potter lined an opposite-field single to left to begin the sixth-inning rally and moved to second two outs later on Kelli Williams’ crisp single to left.
The right handed-hitting Farley followed with her ground ball down the line that had a lot of spin on it and deflected off the first baseman’s glove.
“That was a tough play,” said Southern Aroostook coach Paul Sherman.
Farley said before she went up to the plate she thought about what she had done wrong in previous at bats and what she needed to do to fix it.
“I adjusted my feet, thought about how I was swinging and I wanted to make sure I kept my eye on the ball and put it in play,” she said.
“It felt good coming off the bat. I thought I was going to be out at first but it was nice to get that triple,” said Farley, who has had five triples among her 11 hits this season.
She said that being an eighth grader and starting her first playoff game made her nervous, but that she was prepared.
“I was really proud of her for coming through like that,” said winning pitcher Lauren Veino, who is a freshman.
Veino had a no-hitter through four innings and finished with a five-hitter. All three runs off her were unearned.
The righthander, who features a four-pitch arsenal, struck out nine and walked two.
“She makes you put the ball in play. She throws strikes all day long,” Sherman said.
Southern Aroostook’s Maddie Russell no-hit Penobscot Valley over the first three innings but the Howlers picked up their first two hits of the game in the fourth inning and they pushed across a pair of runs.
Lila Cummings walked to open the inning and she scored on a throwing error on Potter’s sacrifice bunt.
Potter was thrown out at the plate when she tried to score from third on a wild pitch.
However, Veino followed with a base hit and eventually scored when Williams grounded a two-out single to center.
The Warriors answered with three runs in the sixth.
Maddie Russell reached on an infield single and Jenna Brooks wound up on first on the second baseman’s fielding error.
One out later, Maddie Shields ripped a single to right to score Russell and cut the lead in half.
Shields went to second on a wild pitch and Brooks scored on Callie Russell’s grounder to first.
Olivia Ellingwood broke the tie by grounding a single to right to score Shields.
Williams had two singles for the Howlers and Rylee Moulton doubled.
“We hit the ball when we needed to. We made contact,” said PVHS coach Jessica McKechnie.
Ellingwood singled twice and walked in her three at-bats for SA.
Maddie Russell — who led the Warriors to four Class D basketball titles in her five years, including her eighth-grade season, and is going to St. Joseph’s College in Standish to play basketball next season — turned in a quality pitching performance in defeat.
She surrendered six hits and four runs, three earned, with eight strikeouts and one walk.
“Penobscot Valley is obviously a very good team,” Sherman said. “I’m proud of my girls.”
