West Chester Wins First PSAC Softball Title

Box Score

QUAKERTOWN, Pa. – Cat Hammer (Philadelphia, Pa./Archbishop Ryan) hit a three-run home run, and West Chester rode the left arm of junior hurler Amanda Houck (Gap, Pa./Pequea Valley) to its first softball conference title in school history with a 6-0 victory over Bloomsburg in the 2017 PSAC Championship Game at Veteran's Park Saturday night.
 
West Chester (44-10) scored twice in the first and then added Hammer's three-run blast in the third to jump out in front 5-0. The Golden Rams later tacked on another run in the fourth for the final count against Bloomsburg (31-18). With the win, West Chester earns the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division II Tournament, which begins next weekend.
 
Houck (31-3) was named the most valuable player for her part in the tournament. She won all four games inside the circle for the Golden Rams, allowing just four runs in 26 innings of work, pitching West Chester to the title. Saturday, she threw a complete-game shutout in the championship game, scattering three hits over six innings while walking two and striking out three.

"I don't think it has sunk in yet," Houck said afterwards. "It's all kind a surreal right now.

"I just really tried to keep them off balance and let my defense play behind me. At this point in the season, everybody (in the PSAC) has seen me before. So, they all know what I'm throwing. I was just trying to get ground ball outs."

West Chester jumped on top early when leadoff hitter, Madison Kelly (Whitehall, Pa./Whitehall) walked and was bunted over to second by Sarah Walasavage (Minersville, Pa./Minersville). Alyssa Herion (Avon Grove, Pa./Avon Grove) then singled up the middle, and Kelly raced around and scored, beating the throw home. Herion moved up to third on a fielding error by Bloomsburg's third baseman, and then came in to score on a passed ball to give the Rams a 2-0 lead right out of the gate.

In the third, Walasavage singled and stole second, before Herion drew a walk to put runners on first and second with one out. That's when Hammer stepped to the plate and hit a line drive over the center field fence for her seventh home run of the season.

In the fourth, Micaela McSpadden (Spotswood, N.J./Spotswood) led off the frame with a walk. Monica Twardowski (Boothwyn, Pa./Padua Academy) was inserted to pinch run and moved up to second on the ensuing bunt from Emily Maseth (Westminster, Md./Westminster). Twardowski moved up to third on a ground out, and then Walasavage doubled down the left field line to plate Twardowski with the sixth run of the game.

From there, head coach Diane Lokey, turned things over to her lefty ace.

"(Houck) was a trooper all week long," Lokey said. "She didn't have the high strikeout games, like she had all year, but she got the ground balls, and our defense played great behind her. Last year, at NCAAs, the game was too fast for us. I think today you saw our maturity one year later. I kept telling them, 'Keep the game slow. Keep the game slow.'"

For Lokey, in her 14th year coaching the Golden Rams, the school's first PSAC championship was a long-time coming. But, in the end, it was well worth the wait for a program that did not qualify for the conference tournament at all before 2010.

"It's just a really great feeling," Lokey explained. "We took our lumps in the PSAC East for years in the beginning. It was exciting to see so many alums in the stands. I didn't know they were here during the game. But, they are as much a part of this as the team. They are the ones who helped get us to where we are at now as a program."

Houck's 31st win of the season sets a new standard in the PSAC for wins in a single season by a left-handed pitcher, topping former Kutztown southpaw Samantha Derr's mark of 30 wins in 2012.

West Chester will find out where it goes, and who it plays, during the NCAA Division II Softball Tournament Selection Show on Monday, May 8 at 10 a.m.