In the first round of districts, Pleasant Valley battled back from a 5-0 deficit to Easton, ousting the Red Rovers and moving into the quarterfinals.

When Parkland took an early lead in Thursday’s Class 6A quarterfinal game, none of the Bears were hanging their heads.

But the top-seeded Lady Trojans proved to be a much tougher foe than Easton, rolling to an 11-0 win and ending the season for a young Pleasant Valley team.

Parkland (18-5) jumped on starter Kailyn Getz for two runs in the first inning when it used a stretch of four singles to push across the first runs of the game.

In the top of the second, Pleasant Valley showed that it wasn’t intimidated when Eve Kratzer worked a two-out walk to load the bases. Ashlyn Hillanbrand, the Parkland starter, stiffened and was able to end the uprising without any damage, picking up her second strikeout of the game.

As if to punish Pleasant Valley (12-10) for daring to load the bases, the Lady Trojans were merciless in the bottom of the inning. Ten straight batters reached base, nine of which would come around to score. Allison Hunsberger and Brenna Zavecz both delivered two-run singles, while Jenna Piatkiewicz capped the inning with a two-run triple.

“That was a rough inning, and it really put things out of reach a little bit,” said coach Steve Caffrey. “We kept our heads up and we never quit, which says something about this team.”

From there, Hillanbrand got tougher, retiring the side in order in the third. In the fourth though, Bianca Pridham reached on an error to open the inning and Danica Getz drew a walk to put runners on first and second with no one out. Jovi Valenzuela launched a ball to center field, but Vicky Walker made a nice over-the-shoulder catch for the first out of the inning. Sam Ratti drew a walk to load the bags, but again, Parkland turned to its defensive prowess when shortstop Hunsberger made a nice play on a ball hit through the middle, stepped on second for an out and fired to Zavecz at first to complete the inning-ending double play.

“We faced a really good team, and hopefully, this is going to be a learning experience for them,” said Caffrey after meeting with his team for the final time. “Parkland is the type of team that we want to be, and they are at where we want to get to, so this can actually help us realize where we are headed.”

Maddie Dorshimer had come on in relief of Getz and kept Parkland from doing any further damage over the third and fourth innings. Dorshimer recorded two strikeouts in her short outing as Pleasant Valley still held out hope of battling from behind.

Maddie Worden walked to open the fifth for the Bears, but Hillanbrand retired the next two batters and got a game-ending fielder’s choice to finish off the 11-0 win for the Lady Trojans.

With the win, Parkland advances to the semifinals, where it will be matched up against Whitehall (15-7).

Pleasant Valley, which earned the No. 8 seed, opened the season 2-7 and turned things around from there, going 9-2 the rest of the way to finish the regular season at 11-9, just missing the EPC playoffs. The trip to districts was its first since 2019 when it was eliminated in the first round by Whitehall.

“We turned our season around, and made it a good season for ourselves,” said Caffrey. “We can be proud of going from where we were when we started to where we finished this season.”

HIGHLIGHT

... Pleasant Valley showed a lot of development over the season, and it culminated with what will be remembered as the highlight of the season in beating Easton 6-5 in the opening round. That win was also nice for Caffrey, who is a graduate of Easton High School.

NEXT YEAR AND BEYOND.

.. Caffrey should have an easy time making out his roster next season. Of the 15 players on this year’s squad, 12 of them are sophomores or freshmen. That gives Caffrey a strong core group of players in each of the next two seasons and with the development that they showed this season, the Lady Bears figure to be a team to watch.

Pleasant Vy. 000 0 0 - 0 1 1

Parkland 290 0 x - 11 13 1

K. Getz, Dorshimer (3) and Ratti; Hillanbrand and Schultz-Stuardi. W – Hillanbrand, L – K. Getz