PINE GROVE - The young Pine Grove softball team is still learning how to win.
The Cardinals have shown flashes of excellence lately, defeating Tri-Valley and Upper Dauphin as they entered Saturday with a three-game winning streak.
Mahanoy Area ended that winning streak in a hurry. Taking advantage of Pine Grove mistakes, the Golden Bears won 7-3 in a non-league contest Saturday morning. Kelly Walinchus had two hits and two RBIs for Mahanoy Area (4-9).
A few hours later, the Cardinals came back for the nightcap of a doubleheader of sorts, hosting Blue Mountain in a Schuylkill League Division I game. This Pine Grove team looked a lot more like the one that topped the Dawgs and Trojans as the Cards steadily pulled away for a 7-1 victory.
The split kept Pine Grove (8-8, 4-4 D-I) in line for a possible District 11 Class AA playoff berth and with an outside chance to challenge for the Division I wild card and a spot in the Schuylkill League playoffs.
"I don't know if we didn't wake up for the first game,'' Pine Grove coach Ryan Leffler said. "Mahanoy definitely played better than us to beat us.
"I told the girls at the end of the first game, 'We've got to come to play every single day,' '' he added. "In the second game it showed. Blue Mountain is a good team, playing well. We hit the ball well, got a lot of two-out hits, and I thought they were patient at the plate.''
The Cardinals have four league games remaining: home with Jim Thorpe (Monday), at North Schuylkill (Wednesday), home with North Schuylkill (Thursday) and home with Tamaqua (Friday). They need two more wins to qualify for districts.
Many teams have similarly busy schedules entering the final week of the regular season.
Blue Mountain finds itself in that boat, too. The Eagles have three home games - North Schuylkill (today), Panther Valley (Monday) and Tamaqua (Wednesday) - to complete the league schedule, with non-league makeups possible with Pocono Mountain East and Kutztown. Blue Mountain needs two league wins to make the District 11 Class AAA field.
"We've got a couple more games to play. ... It depends which team shows up,'' Blue Mountain coach Terry Ernst said.
Blue Mountain (6-9, 4-5) jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning when Emily Renninger walked, stole second and scored on two errors. She was injured on a collision at the plate and had to come out of the game a few innings later.
Pine Grove answered immediately, taking a 2-1 lead after one inning. Hayley Wolff belted an RBI double and scored the go-ahead run on a strikeout/wild pitch.
"I don't know at that point if it turned it around,'' Ernst said of the bottom of the first. "As the game progressed, we just kept dropping off, and when Emily (Renninger) got hurt at the plate, you could just see the momentum fell off.''
Added Leffler: "Those two runs showed them, 'Hey, we're here to play.' My girls responded well after that and continued to put runs on the board.''
Pine Grove added to its lead in the third inning. Jeena Sidleck led off with a triple to deep left-center and scored on Wolff's second double of the game. One out later, Alyssa Hatter delivered an RBI single to drive in Wolff, who finished 2-for-2 with three runs scored and two RBIs.
The Cardinals added on again in the fifth. With two outs and nobody on base, four straight batters kept the inning alive. Hatter rapped her second RBI single of the day and Mackenzie Hasenauer lined a two-run single to right field.
While the lead grew, Brittanie Whitman kept Blue Mountain's bats quiet. She finished with a complete-game three-hitter and allowed just one unearned run.
So for Pine Grove, the goal of being a playoff team every year continues. These Cardinals started one senior, three juniors, three sophomores and three freshmen, so qualifying for the postseason would be a building block for the future.
"It would mean a lot. It would be a good experience for them to get into districts,'' Leffler said. "I keep telling them, 'One game at a time.' I think we're growing as a team. We've just got to keep going and they've got to keep sticking together and picking each other up.
"... The biggest thing is the chemistry,'' he added. "They've got to stick together and build off each other, because they're capable of doing it - all the time.''