Chambersburg makes a statement in Big Spring tourney win
If you were in attendance during Saturday's Big Spring Softball Tournament championship game, you may have heard Chambersburg coach Chris Skultety shouting in celebration with the team as each runner crossed home plate in a 6-1 title game victory over Greencastle-Antrim.
And that's because the team he's known to have immense potential checked in to win a championship.
"That team that I've been expected to be here all year finally showed up," Skultety said. "Even the beginning of the season when we were 6-0, it wasn't really this."
Chambersburg put forth a solid, well-rounded effort in all three games of the 9th annual Big Spring Softball Tournament, and put on a clinic against Greencastle in the title game for the second straight year.
"We brought some young kids up for the energy and it just seemed to blossom in everyone," Skultety said. "Our pitchers dominated, only giving up two runs all day, and we had timely hits, great defense - this is my team. This is the team I've been looking for all year."
Molly Keefer led the charge for Chambersbug with a leadoff bunt in the third inning, followed by a stolen base and an eventual score on two passed balls to get the Trojans on the board. Kirsten Pugh followed with a line drive hit in the gap to right-center to set up Leah 'The Goose' Hunt.
With two outs, Hunt smashed a two-run home run ball over the fence in centerfield to give Chambersburg a three-run lead.
"It was one of those things where we wanted to come in here, dominate it and win it, especially because of some of the teams we see are right down the road," Hunt said. "So, while we may have bigger goals this year, winning this tournament was something we aimed to do."
After Hunt's dinger, Greencastle's Jenna Carty responded with an RBI single in the following inning to score Ally Brown. But that would be it for G-A, which was shut out in the final three innings despite putting four runners in scoring position.
Sammi Bender, backed by a strong defensive effort from Chambersburg, crushed Greencastle's momentum as the Trojans were unphased by the gutsy baserunning and well-hit balls coming from the Greencastle side.
"I thought we hit the ball well against Chambersburg, we executed out bunts and stuff but they just had that one inning that kind of deflated us and we couldn't rebound," Greencastle coach Mark DeCarli said. "We started off the year a little slow, but now we are in a rhythm and I'm happy with the way we've played this weekend."
Despite taking the loss, Brown pitched well for Greencastle, striking out five batters just hours after throwing a perfect game in the tournament's opening matchup against South Western.
Laken Myers had two RBIs for Chambersburg while Caeley Etter brought in one run. Alexis Estep was 2-for-3 and Hunt had two hits.
Chambersburg won its first-round game against Spring Grove 13-0, and beat Shippensburg in the semifinal 8-1. Greencastle-Antrim beat South Western 10-0, and then took down Big Spring 15-0 to make it to the championship game.