ALLENTOWN It was one of those nights when a lot of little things going wrong snowballed into one big problem for Pleasant Valley, which ran into the undefeated Lady Trojans of Parkland in the District 11 Class AAAA championship game.

The end result was a 6-1 loss for the Bears, putting them just short of a trip to the PIAA Tournament."With this team, every little thing counts and we just made some mistakes and they took advantage of them," said Bears' outfielder Kiersten Griesback. "We made a couple of mistakes and they just come back to bite you."Throughout the night there were a number of close, and sometimes controversial, plays that frustrated the Bears and left them fighting an uphill battle. The biggest controversy of the night came in the bottom of the third inning.Parkland had runners on first and second with one out when Jordy Augustus grounded a ball between first and second. First baseman Kelsey Miczak dove to make a play on the ball, but came up short. The ball then hit pinch-runner Kelly Gruber, who was heading for second base. As second baseman Katie Lenart ran down the ball, the play unexpectedly continued and a bad throw resulted in both runners scoring and Augustus standing on third base.Pleasant Valley coach Steve Caffrey argued that the play should have been ruled dead when the ball hit Gruber, but the umpires conferred and disagreed, letting the play stand. Their ruling was that Miczak had attempted a play on the ball and that no other fielders had a chance to make a play, which negated the rule that would have had the baserunner out by virtue of being hit by the batted ball."They told us that the ball was past the first baseman, so she had no shot at it," said Caffrey. "I was feeling that our second baseman still has a shot at it. Our second baseman is one of our better players, she has some range and all she has to do is knock it down. That's not what won or lost the game for us. You have to hit and at the beginning of the game, and we didn't do that, but we did get a few hits at the end."Griesback thought the controversial play knocked her team down, but then served as a rallying point for it to battle back from a 6-0 deficit."I think it did [hurt emotionally] for a little while," she said. "But I also thought that it motivated us and it got us angry and it got us more into the game. We wanted to get them back and we wanted to get those runs back, because they were taken away from us."Caffrey's team truly wasn't getting any hits early in the game. Parkland's Morgan Rentzheimer was mowing down hitter after hitter and had a perfect game going with two outs in the fifth inning when Lenart drew a two-out walk. Rentzheimer bounced right back and got Jordan Meckes to pop-out to end the inning.Timely Parkland hitting, two Pleasant Valley errors and the key controversial play allowed the Trojans to bolt out to a 6-0 lead after three innings. Bears' starter Tracy Deubler regrouped after all of the controversy and kept Parkland off the board for the rest of the game, giving her team a chance to battle back."They're a good hitting team and they're very aggressive with the bats," said Caffrey. "Her change-up was staying up a little high, but they were able to stay back and wait on it, so that sort of took that pitch away from her. They're a good team and I honestly hope they do well, so we can say that we got beat by the state champs."Pleasant Valley proved it wasn't going to go quietly, as Griesback led off the top of the seventh with a base-hit that squeezed through the middle of the Parkland infield for the Bears' first hit of the game. One out later, Madison Shaneberger singled and Deubler delivered another hit to right to load the bases. Catcher Jordy Augustus seemed intent on picking one of the runners off and after failing to get Shaneberger on a throw to second, she tried to get Griesback at third and threw the ball down the third base line, giving Pleasant Valley a run and putting runners on second and third."I really just wanted to ruin that no-hitter and I wanted to start us on a rally," said Griesback. "When I got that hit, I just thought that the pressure was off and we might come back."Rentzheimer notched her seventh strikeout of the night for the second out and then got Miczak to hit a line drive to first base for the final out of the game."It's been a long week for us and she [Rentzheimer] pitched really well," said Caffrey. "I think she may have tired a little bit towards the end, but we also put the bat on the ball a little better. Even a lot of the outs that we made were well hit, so we have nothing to be ashamed about."Pleasant Vy. 000 000 1 - 1 3 2Parkland 132 000 x - 6 7 1Deubler and Caffrey; Rentzheimer and Augustus. W - Rentzheimer. L - Deubler.