FROSTBURG — For the sixth season in a row, Allegany has finished unbeaten in the Western Maryland Athletic Conference.
The top-ranked Campers racked up 14 hits, led by Jordyn Sneathen’s four RBIs and Tyiss Jessie’s three base knocks, and Sneathen spun a gem in the circle to fuel an 11-1 rout of Mountain Ridge Monday.
Allegany has never lost a WestMAC game, a streak spanning 45 games since the conference was formed in 2020.
“It’s awesome,” Allegany skipper Dave Winner said. “There’s going to come a day when we lose a conference game. It has to happen and that won’t be the end of the world either … It’s a pleasure to coach these kids. They’re all coachable, they’re all good students, they’re all nice kids.”
The Campers end the regular season 17-1 overall, 8-0 in the WestMAC and the No. 1 seed in the Class 1A West Region I playoffs.
Allegany will receive a bye to the region semifinals next week.
Mountain Ridge falls to 8-10 (3-5 WestMAC) and will close the regular season at home against Frankfort on Tuesday.
The Miners came into Monday winners in five of seven games.
“The score didn’t indicate how the game was,” Mountain Ridge manager Kim Jackson said. “We felt like we played well again. This team has not had any quit hit it in two years and they didn’t give up today. Our pitchers both threw the ball pretty well, and we’re pretty glad for that. Proud of them.”
Allegany scored six of its first seven runs with two outs, including all four of its tallies in the second inning that broke a scoreless tie.
Sneathen had the big blast, a bases-clearing triple — one of four Campers extra-base hits. Jessie also tripled, going 3 for 3 with two RBIs, Savannah Walton was 2 for 3 with a double, and Alyssa Rader doubled.
Maylee Blank and Desi Hilton both had multi-hit games, and Hilton, Walton and Blank had a ribbie each.
“Our team’s a good hitting team,” Winner said. “We’re starting to come back and hit it hard. Even a lot of our outs were hit pretty hard.”
Mountain Ridge’s lone run crossed during the second inning on a sacrifice fly by Destinee Johnson, the Miners’ starting pitcher.
The tally was the only blemish in Sneathen’s day in the circle, though the run was unearned after a mental mistake by an Allegany fielder gave Mountain Ridge an extra out.
Allegany’s defense did take at least one away when Jessie, the Campers’ first baseman, snared a hard liner off the bat of Anne Baker with two runners on and touched first base for an inning-ending double play to escape the third.
Sneathen didn’t need much help, as the St. Francis-bound right-hander limited Mountain Ridge to four hits with 13 strikeouts to two walks in seven innings of work.
Destinee Johnson was tabbed with the loss after pitching the first four innings. Cassidee Johnson spun three solid innings of relief, allowing two unearned runs on two hits.
Macy Barth led Mountain Ridge at the plate with a two-hit day.
“The last eight games, they’ve played competitively with everybody,” Jackson said of his team, which begins the region playoffs on Thursday.