COMMODORE, Pa. – Riding the momentum from Friday’s first-round win, sixth-seeded Bishop McCort Catholic grabbed an early edge, manufacturing a first-inning run.
Purchase Line’s Rylee Mahaffey settled in from there, blanking the Crimson Crushers the rest of the way and steering the third-seeded Red Dragons to a 3–1 District 6 Class 1A softball quarterfinal win Monday in a matchup of sophomore right-handed pitchers.
Purchase Line (16-3) countered Bishop McCort’s early run with two of its own in the bottom of the first and added another one in the third. Bishop McCort sophomore pitcher Lariah Myers refused to let the game get away. She settled in over the final three innings, limiting the Red Dragons to two hits and stranding runners in scoring position to keep the Crimson Crushers alive.
Myers finished with six innings, allowing six hits and three runs while striking out 10 with just one walk.
“For the first couple of innings, she was seeing something I wasn’t,” Bishop McCort coach Jimmy Myers said of his daughter. “She came in and said, ‘Let’s go a different route.’ That’s when things settled down. Those first couple of innings were a little tougher, but she wanted to make an adjustment, and we went with it.”
Lariah Myers’ adjustment came after a rocky start on both sides. Bishop McCort (10-12) had jumped ahead 1–0 in the top of the first. Hannah Pfeil led off with a single to right, moved to second on a passed ball and scored on a bunt single by Myers.
Purchase Line answered quickly in its half of the inning. Freshman Leah Nelson dropped a single into center and advanced on a passed ball before Alorra Phillips walked. Lariah Myers cut down the lead runner on a groundball, but Kaitlyn Houser followed by short-hopping the center-field fence for a two-run double.
Nelson opened the third with another single to right. Phillips moved her to second with a sacrifice. After Myers struck out Matko, Houser delivered again – drilling her second double of the game into left to score Nelson for a 3–1 lead. Nelson and Houser each totaled two hits, with Houser driving in all three Purchase Line runs.
“She’s been crushing the ball for about the last two-thirds of the season,” Purchase Line coach Mike Ninosky said of Houser. “Everything she hits is a rocket. We’ve been doing a decent job getting runners ahead of her, and she’s been coming through.”
After allowing Bishop McCort’s first-inning run, Mahaffey retired eight straight before Lariah Myers broke the stretch with a two-out single in the third.
Bishop McCort nearly scored in the fifth. Kristin Stiles lined a clean single to right. Pfeil followed with a sharp drive to nearly the same spot, but right fielder Kiley Himes extended to her right and hauled it in for the third out – a play that likely prevented both runners from scoring.
Mahaffey finished with a five-hitter, allowing one run while striking out 10 and walking just one.
In the sixth, Myers hammered a Mahaffey pitch to the left-field fence, but Lillian Stauffer tracked it down on the run to take away extra bases. Riley Zeglin followed with a single and moved to second on a wild pitch, but Mahaffey got a flyout and a strikeout to end the threat.
“We had some runners on base and couldn’t get the timely hit,” Jimmy Myers said. “That’s where the biggest difference was in this one. I wish we could’ve gotten a few more hits here and there when we needed them.”
Bishop McCort, which also fell to Purchase Line in 2025’s quarterfinals by a 7-4 margin, still showed growth this spring.
“We had four brand-new girls,” Jimmy Myers said. “They were just learning the game, and they made a big jump from the beginning of the season in their development. Tonight, we fought, and they didn’t give up. They tried to keep that energy going and hung in all the way until the end.”