Pittston Area senior pitching sensation Gianna Adams (16) tossed her second no-hit game in as many starts to the season for the Patriots as they shut out Tunkhannock Area 2-0 at Hughestown.
Tony Callaio | For Times Leader
Marina Antal (11) slides at home ahead of the tag from Tunkhannock’s MaKenzie Hannon (7) to score for Pittston Area in the bottom of the sixth inning. Pittston Area defeated Tunkhannock 2-0 Thursday afternoon at Hughestown.
Tony Callaio | For Times Leader
Pittston Area third baseman Tori Stephenson (9) puts the tag on Tunhannock Area’s Addisyn Waterman (00).
Tony Callaio | For Times Leader
PItcher Gianna Adams helped her cause by hitting a single for for the Patriots against Tunkhannock Area at home on Thursday afternoon.
Tony Callaio | For Times Leader
The Patriots’ 1st baseman Julie Mehal (4) fields the ball off of Tunkhannock Area’s McKenzie Hannon (1) for an unassisted out.
Tony Callaio | For Times Leader
HUGHESTOWN — As dominant as Pittston Area pitcher Gianna Adams was Thursday, the Lady Patriots were lacking one thing going to the sixth inning.
Like Tunkhannock, they didn’t have any runs.
A couple errors and wild pitches later, Pittston Area changed that and Adams finished off her no-hitter with her eighth consecutive strikeout in a 2-0 victory in a Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 softball game between the division’s top two programs in recent seasons.
Adams threw a perfect game against Dallas in Pittston Area’s season opener on Tuesday. The two-time state Class 5A Pitcher of the Year and last season’s Times Leader Player of the Year was nearly perfect again Thursday.
Adams walked the second batter she faced and then retired 19 in a row, including striking out the side in the fourth, sixth and seventh innings. She finished with 15 strikeouts, building on the more than 500 she accumulated going into the season. Tunkhannock managed to hit one ball out of the infield, an easy fly to center by Emily Patton to start the fifth inning.
The issue was Pittston Area wasn’t generating much offense against Tunkhannock pitcher McKenzie Hannon, who finished with 10 strikeouts. The Patriots had just two hits through five innings — a single up the middle by Julia Mehal in the third and an infield single by Adams in the fifth.
“It was our second time out here hitting live pitching in a game,” Adams said. “So you still don’t know really what to expect. We have young players, but a lot of them did really well I thought.”
Pittston Area broke through in the sixth without the benefit of a hit. Marina Antal and Sam Herbert opened the sixth by reaching on errors, placing runners at second and third. Two outs later, Antal and Herbert scored on wild pitches.
“Ball on the ground, I was running,” said Antal, who smoked a comebacker in the third on a run-on-contact play that resulted in an out at the plate. “But I saw (the pitch) going up high and I knew it was going to tip the glove.”
Adams finished off the game with three strikeouts, getting the last two batters watching a third strike.
It was just the latest accomplishment for one of the leaders of Pittston Area’s unbeaten Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class 5A state championship season in 2022.
“This is the best version of her,” Pittston Area coach Frank Parente said. “She is taking the senior captain (role) and running with it. Nobody works harder. What an incredible, incredible person.
“I used to think she was electric, but I didn’t know what electric was until this year because she’s been electric this year.”
Pittston Area 13, Dallas 0
Gianna Adams struck out 14 of the 15 batters she faced and the Pittston Area offense scored in every inning of a five-inning perfect game in Tuesday’s season opener at Dallas.
The Lady Patriots were the last team in District 2 team to begin play, jumping right into WVC Division 1 action. By the time the week ended, Pittston Area was alone in first, Crestwood still had not played a WVC game and every other team in the division had already suffered its first defeat.
Adams also had two hits to support an offense that was led by Marina Antal and Tori Stephenson.
Antal went 3-for-4 with a home run, two doubles and four runs batted in.
Stephenson was 4-for-4 with a double, two runs scored and one batted in.
Gabby Gorzkowski went 3-for-3 with two doubles as part of an attack that produced 15 hits, six of them for extra bases. She scored twice and drove in a run.
Julia Mehal scored three times and Gabby Roman scored twice.
Pittston Area is the only unbeaten among seven teams in the District 2-4 Class 5A Subregional and has taken the early lead in the power ratings race for top seed in the playoffs.
