Fox, Northwest Pull Off Softball Upsets to Advance to Championship

The drama and suspense of another South County girls softball season took perhaps its craziest turn of 2012 on Thursday. Fox High School and Northwest High School pulled off a thrilling double upset in the Class 4 District 2 semifinals, knocking off both top-seeded Oakville and second-seeded Seckman.

Fox and Northwest will now meet in the Class 4 District 2 championship game Friday afternoon at Oakville High School. First pitch is set for 4 p.m., weather permitting.

"It should be great game," said Seckman coach Steve Bonastia after his team had its season ended. "Obviously, those are the two hot teams. Northwest sure played great against us today. So it should be interesting to see how it goes (on Friday)."

The Lions (13-11), who have won five straight ballgames and now find themselves listed as the favorites in the championship game, used one of their best hitting days of the season to subdue Seckman.

Northwest piled up 17 hits and led 11-1 at one point, before finally finishing off the Jaguars to advance. The final score was 13-4.

"It was just one of those days," Bonastia said. "They were just on fire, and we just couldn't keep up I guess."

On Thursday, it would've been difficult for anybody to keep up with the Lions, who had six players with at least two hits, led by sophomore Taylor Fortner's four hits and three RBIs and senior Jamie Doggendorf's three hits and two RBIs.

Doggendorf also blasted her team-leading fifth home run of the season in the win.

Fellow senior Alicia Pingleton pitched a complete-game to get the win, holding Seckman to just eight hits, although two of them were home runs by juniors Lauren Faulstich and Alison Szydloski.

Pingleton, the winning pitcher in all 13 of Northwest's wins this year, also struck out 10 Seckman batters in the victory.

Fox's victory over Oakville

An even bigger surprise on Thursday was Fox's incredible win over Oakville.

The Warriors (12-13) had lost twice to the Tigers by a combined score of 30-3, including a 15-0 shutout in the season opener back in August.

But on Thursday, it was Fox that did the walloping, with a 10-hit, seven-run, punch from the offense, and a solid, complete-game effort from pitcher Elora Doherty, that proved just enough to hand Oakville a 7-6 loss.

Junior clean-up hitter Kelsey Brodbeck did the most damage for Fox, with three hits and three runs scored, including two wall-banging doubles off Oakville starter Alex Frenz.

Fellow junior Christine Mitchell had two hits and two RBIs, while teammates Becka Delarber, Kirsten Preston, Haley Slavik, and Karly Allen each added a hit and an RBI as well.

Oakville, which rallied back from 1-0 and 4-1 deficits against Fox, got two runs in the seventh to pull to within 7-6, but wasn't able to get that final run to tie, and finished its 2012 season with a 20-4 record.