Radnor Pitcher Too Much For Marple Newtown

It’s very unfair. It really is. Allowing Christy Von Pusch on a softball field against other high school teams just isn’t right. The junior looks like a woman among girls, she’s that dominant.

The Penn State-bound right-handed pitcher was at her dominant best Thursday night, tossing her fifth no-hitter of the season in blanking Marple Newtown, 3-0, to improve to 8-5 overall and 6-4 in the Central League. Almost every batter that stepped to the plate for Marple Newtown, which dropped to 3-8 overall and 3-7 in the league, swung late.

Von Pusch was no slouch at the plate, either. She belted a solo home run, a rocket to right-center field, and drove in two more runs in the sixth inning. She did it all.

“As long as my mechanics are okay, I do well,” said Von Pusch, who’s going to Penn State on a softball scholarship next fall. “I felt my mechanics were good tonight. My arm speed was slow, but my screwball was working well. I know during warm-ups what pitches work and what pitches don’t work.”

Maybe it was the shoes. Von Pusch was breaking in a new set of spikes.

“That screwball comes in at 67 miles-an-hour, and Christy seems to be more accurate with the off-speed stuff, she’s incredibly tough to hit,” Radnor coach Dave Conaway said. “Her pitches had good movement, but as good as she was tonight, Christy is not even at her A-game yet."

Marple Newtown sophomore Madeline Conca took the loss, though she deserved a better fate. She had a sneaky riser that caused problems for the Radnor hitters, and almost got the Tigers on the board in the third inning, when Radnor first baseman Michelle Tolan and second baseman Britney Bentz combined to make a nice play on a dribbler, just catching Conca at first.

“I always liked pitches a little faster,” Conca said. “Once you see [Von Pusch] a few times, you’re able to get around on the ball. But she’s definitely tough to hit. She’s the best pitcher in the league."

After the Von Pusch second-inning homer, Conca did a nice job of keeping Radnor off balance until the sixth inning. The Red Raiders made an important adjustment in the later innings. They stepped up in the batter’s box, trying to get a jumper on Conca’s effective riser. Sitting in the back of the batter’s box, the Red Raiders were swinging at air, by the time the ball rose.

Radnor opened up what had been a close game, and again, Von Pusch was in the middle of the rally. The Red Raiders got a pair of runners on in the sixth, when Von Pusch nubbed a blooper that didn’t even escape the dirt infield cutout. It landed just beyond second base with the infield drawn in, yet strong enough to score a pair of runs, giving Radnor a 3-0 lead.

From there, Von Pusch closed the door on Marple Newtown. The Tigers couldn’t get the ball out of the infield, as Von Pusch coaxed the Tigers’ first two batters to ground out. She issued her fifth walk of the game to the third batter of the inning, but any hope of building something against the dominant Von Pusch was quelled when Radnor snared the baserunner trying to steal second for the game’s final out.