as No. 2 Valley View topped No. 1 Tunkhannock, 1-0, to win the Cougars\u2019 fourth straight District 2 Class 4A championship Wednesday evening at Wilkes University<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe win was the fourth straight for Valley View over Tunkhannock in the title game and advanced the Cougars to face District 3 runner-up Northern Lebanon in the first round of the PIAA Class 4A playoffs on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis means so much to me,\u201d Call said. \u201cThis game will humble you in so many ways no matter who you are. I think we do such a great job working as a team. Everyone contributes and does their job and that\u2019s how we keep doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Locked in a pitchers duel with Tunkhannock freshman sensation Michaela Howell, neither team generated much traffic through five innings, as only one runner reached scoring position for either team.<\/p>\n
With one out in the top of the sixth inning, Call knew it might be her last chance at the plate. She talked over strategy with head coach Mia Wascura, stepped in the box, saw her pitch and took advantage, sending a pitch over the wall in center field for the game\u2019s first and only run.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe (Wascura) told me to relax and just do my thing,\u201d Call said. \u201cThe team has confidence in me in pressure situations. I took a deep breath, saw my pitch and hit it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a big-time player and that\u2019s exactly what I told her (Call). That kid knows how to handle the pressure,\u201d Wascura said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if in my career I\u2019ll coach another kid like Abbi Call. She\u2019s so smooth, does things that you can\u2019t teach and everyone on the team feeds off her. The last two weeks she\u2019s been locked in and is a next-level athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though Valley View had the lead, Call still had six more outs to get and against a lineup like Tunkhannock\u2019s, that is no easy task. In the bottom of the sixth, Tunkhannock\u2019s Lucy Karp worked a nine-pitch walk with one out, Addisyn Waterman reached on an infield single and Makenzie Bevan was hit by a pitch to load the bases with one out.<\/p>\n
The jam put no panic into the Cougars. Alli Kinney hit a rocket that was fielded cleanly by third baseman Coral Kelly, who fired home to get the force out. Then, Call got Howell to ground out to first to end the inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the ball was hit to me, I knew exactly what to do and that was throw home to get the force,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cWe practice those situations all the time. We all take pride in our fielding and knowing what to do in those pressure situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot tell you how many hard balls that we\u2019ve been hitting at Coral in practice,\u201d Wascura said. \u201cShe\u2019s a world-class kid, never bats an eye. She\u2019s young, I\u2019m tough on her, and she could handle it. We\u2019re super proud of her.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the jam behind her, Call finished in style, retiring Tunkhannock in order in the seventh inning with Kelly moving to her left to field another rocket ground ball for the second out of the inning. Kiana Hannon then flew out to right fielder Ashlan Palickar for the final out and set off a celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fielders were amazing today,\u201d Call said. \u201cIt\u2019s the absolute best feeling to know that when I\u2019m pitching I have great fielders behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tunkhannock\u2019s season concludes with a 21-2 record, and its fourth straight district runner-up finish. The loss was the Lady Tigers\u2019 first to an opponent from Pennsylvania this season. Its only other loss came to Chardon, Ohio, at the Ripken Experience in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just didn\u2019t get timely hitting. We had kids on base their in the sixth with a good chance and just couldn\u2019t get it done,\u201d Tunkhannock coach Bob Hegedty said. \u201cShe (Call) is a tough pitcher, and today they were better than us. We have a younger team, so we\u2019re going to get back to work and hopefully try and get back here next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up next for Valley View is Northern Lebanon, the same first-round opponent as last season when the Lady Cougars picked up a 1-0 victory on their way to a state championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the fun part,\u201d Wascura said of the state playoffs. \u201cWe\u2019re going to watch a lot of film on them, look at their tendencies and continue to practice hard like we always do. I\u2019m excited and ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valley View\u2019s Abbi Call delivers a pitch againt Tunkhannock in the District 2 Class 4A softball championship game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-204609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-high-school-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Valley](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/CVC-L-VALLEYVIEWTUNKSB-0529-4.jpg\"\/)
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<\/p>\n![\"Valley](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/CVC-L-VALLEYVIEWTUNKSB-0529-9.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Valley](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/CVC-L-VALLEYVIEWTUNKSB-0529-10.jpg?w=620\")
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