Kisch's bomb leads Burlington Central past St. Francis

Sarah Kisch was just trying to get on base.

With her Burlington Central Rockets tied with St. Francis, the catcher just wanted to do something to help the team. She did that in a big way, knocking the ball over the fence in left-center field.

Kisch also drove in an insurance run with a sacrifice fly after Abby Morrow tripled leading off the seventh inning. Those 2 runs were the difference as the Rockets defeated St. Francis, 5-3, in the semifinals of the Class 3A Hampshire regional Thursday.

Jet Kein came on in relief in the third inning to earn the win. It was her first action after being out for 3 weeks with shin splints.

The third-seeded Rockets evened their season record at 12-12 and will play top seed St. Viator (19-17) at 1 p.m. Saturday for the regional championship. Central, which finished third in Class 3A last season, will be seeking its seventh straight regional title and eighth in the last nine years. St. Viator has never won a regional championship in softball.

"I wasn't going up there looking for a big hit," said Kisch. "I was just trying to get on base, and it came out as a big hit. I was booking (to first base) and my teammates were screaming, and I wondered what was going on."

The Rockets took an early lead thanks to 3 unearned runs in the first three innings. Cassie Warner's 2-run single was the big hit.

The Spartans tied the game on back-to-back sacrifice flies by Laura Behnke and Emily Karpinski in the third and Brie Pasquale's single in the fourth. But the tie lasted only until Kisch came up leading off the fifth.

"The girls never lost sight of what track we wanted," said acting Central coach Lowell Oranger. "We realized that we just had to make the plays, and we're a good enough hitting team that we were going to get our opportunities."

Kein and Ashley Scheffler each had 3 hits for the Rockets.

Pasquale finished with 3 hits for St. Francis (22-11).

"It's the first three runs that hurt," said St. Francis coach Ralph Remus. "The unearned runs were plays we should have made. It was great to come back, but then they actually got some earned runs there."

Taylor Ronchetto allowed just 2 earned runs, walking just 2 batters in the process for the Spartans.