LAVALE — Abi Britton said her velocity is “starting to come back” after the game Monday; that’s a scary thought.
The Penn State-bound pitcher tossed her second perfect game against Mountain Ridge and third of the season, and Allegany routed the Miners, 10-0, in five innings to advance to the Class 1A West Region I championship game.
In two games against Mountain Ridge, Britton has retired all 33 hitters, striking out 29.
“My velo has been kind of down, and I feel like it’s starting to come back,” said Britton, who has nine career perfect games. “And working the rise in is really helping me. I feel like my change-up was really effective today, so we used that a little bit more.”
Allegany (18-0), on a quest for a second state championship in three years, will host Northern (12-7), an 8-1 winner over Southern in the other semifinal, on Wednesday.
Alco beat the Huskies, 21-0 and 10-0, during the regular season.
Mountain Ridge, which defeated Fort Hill, 6-5, in the region quarterfinals to advance to Monday’s game against Allegany, finishes with a 6-10 record.
“If you want to be the best, you gotta beat the best,” Mountain Ridge head coach Dave Tipton said. “That’s a once in a lifetime gift right there. She throws hard. She moves the ball good. You can only practice so much with speeds like that.
“Proud of my girls though. They didn’t give up all year. … I told them, we don’t have anything to lose. Everybody is against us, everybody thinks we’re going to lose, so let’s just go out there and play ball.”
Mountain Ridge had to play close to perfect on Monday, and it was far from that in the first inning.
Allegany drew three walks and three other batters were hit by pitches, and the Campers pushed six runs across. Jordyn Sneathen, Sky Porter and Alexis Johnston had RBI singles in the frame, Maylee Blank scored one on a hit by pitch and Desi Hilton had an RBI groundout.
Britton added to the Allegany lead with an RBI double in the third inning, and Sneathen and Porter walked with the bases loaded for a 9-0 Allegany lead.
Alyson White pushed Allegany’s edge to the 10-run margin necessary for a run rule with a pinch-hit RBI single in the fourth.
“Big thing tonight too was everybody got to play, and it was a playoff game,” Allegany head coach Dave Winner said. “Alyson had the game-winning RBI, which was great. Abi pitched phenomenal. Riley (Gallagher) caught a great game.
“Mountain Ridge fights, I respect them. They work hard. I don’t think they quit. They had life. They’re well-coached too.”
Gallagher was 2 for 2 with two steals and scored twice, Britton was 2 for 3 with two runs scored and Porter was 2 for 2 with two RBIs.
Mountain Ridge put the ball in play just twice against Britton on back-to-back batters in the fourth, both on bunts.
Jaianna Wickline laid a bunt down the third-base line to lead off the fourth, and it took an off-balance throw from Sneathen, the third baseman, to get her at first by a step.
“Jordyn made a great play at third,” Britton said. “Thank God she was able to get it over in time.”
The second try by Macy Barth went back to Britton in the circle for an easy out.
Second baseman Maylee Blank did well covering first base on both attempts.
“Our bunt defense was perfect,” Winner said. “We had two bunt defenses, and I think teams are going to do that to us going forward.”
Britton struck out 13 to push her season total to 198 compared to just five walks. The right-hander has a 14-0 record and a 0.09 ERA after allowing just one earned run on 16 hits in 78 innings so far this year.
Allegany is four wins from getting back to College Park, a place it came up short of last year with a 1-0 loss to Catoctin in the state quarterfinals.
Only Northern stands between Allegany and another trip to the state tournament.
“We’re looking at a four-game season right now in our minds,” Winner said.