UNIVERSITY PARK – Mid Valley opened Friday’s Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class 3A softball state championship game by immediately ending Mount Pleasant’s 38-inning unscored upon streak.
Trying to stop Mount Pleasant’s winning streak and its offense proved to be a more difficult task.
Haylie Brunson tripled, singled and drove in two runs, leading the Vikings to a come-from-behind, 5-3 victory at Penn State and their second championship in the last four state tournaments.
Mid Valley scored twice in the bottom of the first, carried the lead into the fourth and was tied going into the fifth.
Mount Pleasant scored three times in the top of the fifth to take a 5-2 lead on the way to its 10th straight win.
Brunson, who broke the tie, and Corto Poulich had RBI singles before Hanna Gnubis doubled in the final run.
The big inning left Mid Valley playing catch-up the rest of the way.
The Spartanettes immediately got one run back.
Zoe Zielinski led off the bottom of the inning with a double.
Two outs later, Maranda Runco was intentionally walked and Chiara Zavislak responded with an RBI single.
Mid Valley, however, stranded two runners in both the fifth and seventh.
Courtney Rebar worked out a one-out walk and moved up on Emma Kobylanski’s groundout.
Mount Pleasant again put Rebar on, even though she was the tying run and the move brought the winning run to the plate.
The strategy worked for the Vikings when Abby Swank ran down a flyball near the left-field line for the final out.
Lindsey Jason, who had two of Mid Valley’s four hits, was right in the middle of the two-run first for the Lackawanna League Division 3 and District 2 Class 3A champs.
Jason tripled to score Zelinski, who had walked after Runco’s deep flyout to lead off.
A Kat Davis bunt brought Jason in with the second run.
Mount Pleasant managed 11 hits off Runco, who walked two and struck out six.
