Tunkhannock fell into its biggest hole of the Little League Softball World Series during the first inning of Tuesday night’s semifinal.
The East Regional champions immediately dug themselves out.
After completing a comeback from a three-run deficit, Tunkhannock will play for world championship Wednesday night in Portland, Ore.
Sydney Huff went 3-for-3 while supplying strong defense at first base and Paige Marabell delivered the game-winning hit as Tunkhannock rallied to defeat Lake Oswego, Ore., 6-4.
The win puts Tunkhannock into the 10 p.m. game against Wheelersburg, Ohio, which handed Eastbank from River Ridge, La. its first loss of the tournament, 5-1, in the earlier semifinal. The championship game will be televised by ESPN.
“We’re here with the last 10 softball teams in the world, so you know you’re playing quality teams and you’re going to have to play good games to beat them,” said Tunkhannock manager Tim Hannon, whose team has won five out of six games during the tournament.
Ella McNeff, who drove in two runs, and winning pitcher Kaya Hannon added two hits each in the latest win.
McNeff continues to ignite the offense from the leadoff spot in the order. She scored the go-ahead run and drove in the eventual winner in Monday’s, 2-1, extra-inning win over Bacolod City West from the Philippines. She leads the team during the World Series in hits (10), batting average (.526), doubles (four), triples (two), RBI (seven), runs scored (seven) and stolen bases (four).
Second baseman Hannah James joined McNeff and Huff in making a series of defensively plays to help get Tunkhannock through the semifinal.
McNeff and Huff took away the middle. McNeff, the shortstop, went to the middle to catch a low liner that she turned into an inning-ending double play. James went that way on a grounder, then made a quick pivot and throw to get the game-ending out by less than a half a step, with the help of a nice stretch by Huff at first base.
Without the efficient play by James and Huff, Lake Oswego would have cut the deficit to one run and brought the potential winning run to the plate.
Earlier in the game, Huff came off the bag to handle a high throw and got her foot back on in time to record one inning-ending out. She ended the next with a tough backhanded grab after slightly overrunning a foul pop.
Tunkhannock also had plenty of offense, putting together 10 hits.
James and Elaina Kulsicavage each had a hit and scored twice.
Huff got the comeback started as the first batter of the second inning after Lake Oswego had used back-to-back RBI singles by Shelby Moore and Brooke Leach, then a Tunkhannock error to score three times in the first.
The lead-off hit by Huff was followed by three straight batters reaching base with one out.
Alexis Gilroy walked, James added an RBI single to right and McNeff doubled to right-center, near the same spot where she had placed the game’s biggest hit Monday night. This time, she drove in two runs to tie the game.
Two innings later, Tunkhannock had the lead.
Pinch hitters Serenity Kerr and Piper Robinson drew walks with one and two outs.
Hannon singled to load the bases for Marabell.
“I knew I needed to score the runners,” Marabell told ESPN2.
Marabell’s hard single through the left side scored James and pinch runner Kulsicavage for a 5-3 lead.
“We kept our heads up the whole time,” Marabell said in the post-game, on-field, television interview.
Then, Tunkhannock kept the lead the rest of the way.
Lake Oswego, the host team as the winner of the local district in Oregon, got a run back in the bottom of the fourth, but Tunkhannock restored the two-run advantage in the sixth.
Kulsicavage reached on an infield single when Tunkhannock won a video appeal after she was originally called out. Kulsicavage then took second on a wild pitch and scored on Hannon’s hit up the middle.
Hannon recovered from a rough first inning to finish with a six-hitter. She allowed three earned runs while striking out five and walking one.
The win allowed Tunkhannock, the team that started the tournament with a 2-0 win over Layritz from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, to also be around to close the event in the championship game.
After winning district, section, state and region titles, Tunkhannock has now had the longest possible stay at the Alpenrose Dairy Farm outside Portland, which is hosting the tournament for the 25th straight year.
The Cadonau family opened its dairy farm in 1891 and has operated it for generations. It added baseball fields to the farm grounds southwest of the city in the 1950s, then offered them to the local Little League. From there, a stadium was built and the World Series was brought to the farm in 1994.
Television coverage came to the Little League Softball World Series for the first time in 2001 and has expanded to the point where this year’s series was the first to have every game broadcast, either by one of ESPN’s television networks or by ESPN+, its streaming service.
That broadcast coverage has made video appeals possible and Tunkhannock’s coaching staff has been among the most successful in deciding when to ask for reviews of umpires’ calls.
With broadcasts of all the games available, support for Tunkhannock has grown stronger throughout the series with viewing parties filling the Dietrich Theater, the Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge and Bogey’s Grille at Shadowbrook Resort as fans gather in many locations to watch the games together.
Social media comments and encouragement make it clear that surrounding areas of northeastern Pennsylvania have been following, too, including requests to keep Twitter updates coming during storm-related power outages that eliminated television coverage in the Abingtons late in Tuesday night’s semifinal.
