ORWIGSBURG - The Williams Valley softball squad on display in the first three innings of Wednesday's Schuylkill League semifinal with North Schuylkill at Blue Mountain's Patton Field was an unfamiliar one.
The Vikings were held to one hit and no runs during that stretch and trailed by one run. But Williams Valley junior Maura Kreiser wasn't worried.
"Sometimes that happens," Kreiser said of the dry spell. "But we always say the third or fourth inning are our innings. That's when everything happened."
Kreiser's two-run triple in the bottom of the fourth inning gave the Vikings their first lead of the game, a lead they wouldn't again relinquish en route to an 8-2 win over the Spartans.
Williams Valley plays Pottsville, a 10-2 winner over Marian in the second semifinal, in today's 7 p.m. league championship at Patton Field.
"I don't know what happened the first couple innings," Williams Valley coach Lee Reiser said. "We seemed a little flat, didn't seem to get excited about playing.
"Once we got behind, they got in gear and did what they had to do, took care of business and hit the ball pretty hard after the first couple innings."
Division I wild card North Schuylkill (15-7) took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning when Vikings pitcher Cassidy Pinchorski walked leadoff batter Christie Hutira, who scored on a throwing error two batters later.
The situation grew more ominous for the Division II champion Vikings (21-0) in the top of the fourth with Spartan runners on second and third and ready to add to the lead.
But Kreiser, unaware of her soon-to-be offensive heroics in the next half-inning, picked Rachel Gricoski off third base to end the inning, keeping the North Schuylkill lead at 1-0.
"I thought, if we actually scored a run or two more, we would've put more pressure on them," North Schuylkill coach Dominick Grasso said. "In the first few innings (Williams Valley's) lineup wasn't coming true. From the fourth inning on, the whole lineup came true. They had a couple great hits and everything was a gapper."
Instead of having the added pressure of a two- or three-run deficit, the Vikings were free to wield the bats as they have all season.
"It gave us momentum back," Reiser said of Kreiser's pickoff at third. Kreiser added another pickoff of courtesy runner Rachel Bell at first base in the top of the fifth.
"We were flat and needed something to pick us up," Reiser added. "Usually it's our hitting. This time it was our defense. Some nice plays in the field got us going."
Williams Valley sophomore Rayanne Hawk got things started offensively in the fourth with a leadoff single, advancing to second and third on a passed ball and a throwing error.
Pinchorski doubled Hawk in to tie the game. Tianna Yanoscak walked two batters later to put two Vikings on base before Kreiser's triple.
"Once one of us hits, we all start hitting," Kreiser said. "It just kind of got us going and we didn't stop."
North Schuylkill got a run back in the top of the fifth on an RBI triple by Nadya Spotts. It looked as though the Spartans would also plate Spotts when Brianna Schlauch hit a hard grounder to short in the next at-bat, but Schlauch was barely thrown out at first by Hannah Nestor. Grasso came onto the field to argue the close call to no avail.
"It changed the momentum of the game," Grasso said of the play and of Kreiser's two pickoffs. "But you gotta give them credit. That's why they're state champs. We went small ball and they made mistakes ... their bats are great. They did what they had to do."
Williams Valley pushed three more runs across in the fifth inning on four hits, including another hit and run scored by Hawk, who finished the day 3-for-4 with three runs and an RBI double.
Pinchorski singled again in the fifth before Kate Whelski's double scored Hawk. Caitlyn Pinchorski, pinch-running for her older sister, scored a batter later on an RBI single by Yanoscak.
Hannah Nestor and Hawk both doubled and scored runs in the sixth inning to set the final.
The game started as a pitchers' duel, with the first hit coming 13 batters in when Yanoscak ended Hutira's streak of 28 straight batters retired, including her perfect game against Tamaqua in Monday's Division I wild-card tiebreaker.
Winning pitcher Cassidy Pinchorski struck out nine batters while only giving up two hits.
"We made it interesting for a while," Reiser said. "But that's what it's all about. We played well enough to win, but I was a little disappointed in our defense.
"We'll work on it tomorrow," Reiser added. "We'll be better tomorrow ... guaranteed."