An early season softball game against Stroudsburg might not have looked like one worthy of being circled on the calendar, but there was a buzz in the air at the Northampton softball field that told otherwise.

“I think last year when they beat us, they walked off the field like they had won the world championship, and I think that stuck with a lot of us,” stated head coach Kristy Henritzy. “There’s a lot of chippiness, not in a bad way, but just females wanting to compete with other really good females.”

Stroudsburg drew first blood, pushing across an unearned run in the top of the first inning.

Senior Avery Deibert, a Rider commit, tied the game by mashing 1-2 pitch over the left center field fence for a solo homer to lead off the bottom half of the second for Northampton.

“My thought process when I got in the box was, ‘It’s 1-0. They just scored. They have momentum. We need that momentum back.’ She threw the pitch right where I like it and I just took it out. Before the game today, coach told us to be aggressive and swing at first pitch strikes because they have two of the better pitchers who like to throw junk pitches,” explained Deibert.

The K-Kids added a trio of runs in the bottom of the third, sparked by a walk by Leah Regan, a bunt single by Laila Reichl, and double by JoJo Siegfried.

In the circle, Rylee Gable was keeping the Mountaineers off the scoreboard, including getting out of a base-loaded jam in the fourth without surrendering a run.

It was 4-1 going to the sixth when Stroudsburg managed to notch a second unearned run on a long fly ball that rode the wind almost to the outfield fence.

The Mountaineers started the seventh with back-to-back to doubles to cut the margin to 4-3. Gable struck out the third and fourth-place hitters to get the Kids within an out of victory, but Katren Lavra smacked a two-run homer to set off a celebration in the visitor’s dugout.

Despite leading 4-1 for much of the game, Northampton only had 4 hits through 6 innings. They doubled that total in about three minutes. Siegfried led off the bottom of the seventh with her second double of the afternoon and stole third. Kiley Henritzy delivered a single to left to score Siegfried and knot the game at 5.

Catcher Hannah Duerr ripped the first pitch she saw into left field for a double, setting up Deibert with second and third and no outs. One offering was all she needed to send a ball through the right side of the infield for the game-winning RBI and a bit of revenge for the Kids.

“I was just walking up there, knowing my team needs me and I’m going to do what I need to do,” said Deibert. “They just had got a home run and most teams stay down on that, but not our team. We have a lot of heart. We have a lot of fight. We kept our energy up and honestly that was the motivation I needed.”