When Latrobe softball coach Bob Kovalcin was asked about the level of confidence he has in his ace senior pitcher, Alexa Bryson, he offered the following:

"There is no one I would rather have with the ball. When I give her the ball, I have the confidence a high school football coach would have handing Terrelle Pryor the ball and saying, 'Go win this game.' When it is the biggest game, you want your best player with the ball in [his or her] hands. In football, it would be Terrelle Pryor; in softball, if I want a game to be won, I'm handing the ball to Alexa."

Heavy praise. Then again she has earned it.

Bryson, a Robert Morris recruit, has a 20-2 record with 306 strikeouts. She struck out 25 batters in her most recent outing and has not allowed a run in 51 postseason innings. Earlier this week, she was named the Pennsylvania Gatorade Player of the Year.

But the biggest test comes tomorrow when WPIAL champion Latrobe (22-2) plays Hatboro-Horsham (24-2) in the PIAA Class AAAA championship at 2 p.m. at Shippenburg University's Robb Field.

Hatboro-Horsham, north of Philadelphia, finished second in District 1. And while the Lady Hatters don't know all that much about Bryson, their coach, Kelly Krier, understands numbers do not lie.

"We know that she is a strong pitcher," Krier said. "We do know that she has really, really been on a roll in the playoffs."

Being on a roll through the playoffs is easily forgotten if a team loses the championship game -- as was the case with Latrobe last season and the year before with Hatboro-Horsham. Latrobe stumbled last year against Pennsbury in the title game; Hatboro-Horsham lost to Shaler in 2006.

Bryson baffled Pennsbury for much of last season's championship game, but the Wildcats were done in by late-game defensive lapses in a 3-2 loss.

"I look at it this way: You can't be the team that makes the mistakes, or you are going to be the team that is going to lose," Kovalcin said. "We went through that last year, and it is not a good feeling to have to walk off that field as the losing team. I am sure our girls remember how that feels going into this one."

WPIAL champion Vincentian (23-2) is riding the crest of an 11-game win streak heading into a PIAA Class A championship matchup with District 3 champion Upper Dauphin (22-2) at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Shippensburg.

Upper Dauphin is in Elizabethville, north of Harrisburg, and word of Vincentian pitcher Trish Melvin's exploits surely has traveled that far.

A Brown University recruit, the right-handed Melvin has pitched every Vincentian game this year and struck out 294 batters.

In three PIAA playoff games -- wins against Fannett Metal, Cambridge Springs and Bishop Guilfoyle -- Melvin has allowed a total of just six hits, two in each game.