Saboja’s walk-off hit pays off Garnet Valley’s patience

CONCORD — Garnet Valley was three runs behind with six outs left in its District 1 Class 6A softball playoff Monday with underdog Perkiomen Valley.

It was awful. The 12th-seeded Jaguars were being no-hit and shut out. The errors that handed the 21st-seeded Patriots two runs were going to leave a mark.

Just when the Jaguars’ fate seemed inevitable, coach Alie Alkins called them together and ordered them to forget the first five innings.

In the time it takes to say, “are you kidding me?”, the Jaguars rallied to tie in the sixth and walk off with a 4-3 victory.

Garnet Valley advances to the second round of districts, where it will take on fifth-seeded Downingtown West Wednesday at 5 p.m.

“They were due for some hits,” Alkins said. “I was so excited for the bottom of the lineup. I told them everything that’s happened to this point doesn’t matter. It just takes one to get us going.”

The Jaguars (16-5) couldn’t have done it without Kayleigh Saboja, who kick-started the three-run rally in the sixth inning with a leadoff walk and finished the game with a walk-off single. That plated Emily Orsini, who opened the seventh inning with a single.

One of just two Jaguars that Ava Macalios failed to strike out, Saboja banged the first pitch to centerfield to touch off the celebration.

“I was being very selective the whole game and honestly, that was the first pitch where I thought, ‘that’s mine,’” Saboja said. “I was waiting for that pitch all game. So I was glad I was able to take advantage of it.”

Saboja kickstarted the fireworks by drawing a walk in the sixth inning. Catcher Annie Bechtold, who’d hit the ball hard all day, ripped a triple to right, scoring Saboja and warming up the crowd.

Pitcher Anna Sidlowski, working on a three-hitter much of the game, then sent a laser to deep center field that Brianna Reim got a glove on but couldn’t stop from going over the fence. Bang! It was 3-3.

“If she was an inch taller, she would have caught it,” Perkiomen Valley coach John Pascucci said. “That one inning things didn’t go our way.”

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