Solanco's softball team can certainly attest to the saying that all good things must come to an end. They should appreciate the fact that they finished the season with a 22-5 mark that included the Section Two crown. "And they should not let the last three games tarnish the rest of the season," said head coach Brett Miller. "If you would have asked me at the start of the season if I would have taken a 22-5 record, I would have said heck yeah. This was one of the better records in my career and we did it with one starting senior."

After pretty much cruising through the regular season with a 22-2 record, Solanco won the Section Two title (14-1) and carried a 14-game winning streak into the post-season. They opened the L-L League playoffs with a 9-1 win over Manheim Central but suffered their second loss of the season, an 11-4 final against Warwick. They rebounded with a 12-1 thumping of Lower Dauphin and topped Ephrata 4-1 before losing their last three games of the season.

A 6-4 district consolation loss to Greencastle Antrim on Thursday, June 1, left Solanco as the fourth seed in District Three. The hosts looked to threaten early with Josie Janssen, who went 3-4, reaching on a one out base hit and Holly Grube working a walk. They were left stranded.

Greencastle broke through with one in the third and Solanco matched that effort when Janssen's sharp single to right field skipped past the outfielder allowing the junior to race home. The Blue Devils scored one more in the fourth and pushed two across in the fifth for a 4-1 advantage. Again, Solanco responded. Grube and Sara DeFrancesco smacked back-to-back two out home runs to knot the score. But that was the end of their rally.

Two errors in the sixth, the second with two outs, contributed to Greencastle's two-run sixth. That proved to be the difference. Solanco went three up, three down in their half of the inning and Janssen was left stranded in the seventh.

"We needed a few more key hits and a few less errors," said Miller. "We certainly had opportunities. We needed to capitalize. At this point in the season, we cannot give extra at bats. Despite the loss, we were one of 16 teams moving on to the state playoffs."

Anna Sexton gave up eight hits, struck out two and walked two. Ava Fedoruk finished with two hits.

Monday the girls made a 4.5-hour drive to North Allegheny High School for their opening round of the PIAA 5A tournament where they faced WPIAL champs Trinity (20-2) who was making their first state playoff appearance since 2015. The hosts made the most of that opportunity, taking an early lead en route to an 8-3 victory.

"Holly rips a two out triple in the first inning and we left her stranded," recalled Miller. "We needed to capitalize. We gave up too many two out hits or had a two-out error."

Trinity came back with three in the bottom half, scoring two runs with two outs on three hits and one error, and Hanna Swhoski connected for a two-run homer in the second frame, quickly pushing the lead to 5-0.

Two more errors in the fourth inning led to Trinity extending their advantage to 6-0. Not going down without a fight, Solanco rallied in the fifth, scoring three runs to cut the lead in half. Kira Roark and Holly Grube reached on back-to-back base hits and scored on DeFrancesco's base hit.

Solanco finished with two hits in the sixth and went three up, three down in the seventh. In the meantime, Trinity scored two runs in the top of the sixth on back-to-back base hits and pulled out the victory.

Both teams finished with nine hits each, but Solanco committed four errors in the loss. Roark, Janssen and Grube each went 2-4.

"After that second inning, Anna came on," said Miller. "She just needed more consistency behind her.

"These kinds of games, playoffs, need mature play. We have one senior starter. Now the rest of the team has gained this experience.

"Looking back, I didn't think we'd win the section title by several games. I thought it might come down to the last one. And that week we played four games in five days and clinched with big wins (6-3 over L-S, 11-1 over Etown, 10-0 over CV and 12-7 over Ephrata), that started this whole thing," he added. "We played the top teams and different people were stepping up."

This was the fourth time Solanco was making an appearance in the PIAA tournament. Their last showing was in 2018 when they lost in the semifinals to Lampeter-Strasburg.