Pick your cliche - or headline - here.

Wawasee softball pitcher Megan King pitched a game fit for a king Thursday evening.

Wawasee softball pitcher Megan King was the king of the hill Thursday evening.

Wawasee softball pitcher Megan King crowned the Goshen Redskins Thursday evening.

However you say it, this much was for certain: King and her nearly unhittable stuff ruled in Wawasee's sectional game with Goshen.

King, a junior right-hander, struck out 11 in just five innings as Wawasee beat Goshen 10-0. Goshen ends the season 7-19. Wawasee, 18-11, meets 8-19 Elkhart Central in the Class 3A Warsaw Sectional championship game at 11 a.m. Saturday.

King, 7-3, held Goshen to two hits. She faced 19 batters and threw strike one to 15 of them. The Redskins managed to hit two balls out of the infield. The Redskin batters were tardy on the majority of their hacks.

The 11 strikeouts are the most in a game this season for King.

"Megan pitched a three-hitter against Goshen earlier this year," Wawasee coach Bo O'Dell said. "That sticks in a coach's mind.

"She hit the spots. She worked it hard inside, outside and then busted it down the middle hard. We want to jump ahead of hitters like that. It puts the pressure on them instead of on us. Megan threw great and controlled the whole game."

Wawasee beat Goshen twice during the regular season.

A meltdown by Goshen's defense in the second inning would give the Warriors all the runs they would need.

Wawasee's Kari Wortinger led off the inning by reaching first after the ball hit her on the foot. The next two batters, Tara Hymer and Danielle Powell, reached when Goshen senior shortstop Jaime Rogers developed a phobia about throwing the ball to first. Both batters reached safely when Rogers threw the ball up, up and away over first.

Rogers wasn't the only Goshen player bitten with the fear-to-throw-to-first base bug. With one out, Wawasee's Andrea Gingerich reached second when junior pitcher Teresa Smith threw the ball past first base and into right field.

Sara Frantz, Jaime Conn and King would add RBI singles in the inning. When it came to a close, Wawasee had scored five runs on only three hits. The Redskins finished with three errors - all on throws to first base - in the inning alone.

Longtime Goshen coach Janet Johns retired after the game. On the list of ways to go out, this fell somewhere between a perfect game and a line drive to the forehead.

"To come out and play defense like we did, we dug ourselves a hole," she said. "Veteran errors, too. That's the bad part."

The Warriors added five more runs in the fifth inning. This time they didn't do it on Goshen errors but on hits and walks. Wawasee tallied five hits and received three walks in the inning to take the 10-0 lead. Frantz and Sonya Beer each drew back-to-back walks with the bases loaded to score two runs.

When Goshen didn't score in the bottom of the inning, the game was over because of the 10-run rule.

The win, while nice, was tainted in Wawasee's eyes.

The Warriors lost senior left fielder/pitcher Jaime Conn to an ejection in the second inning. It wasn't something she said, but something she did. She had singled earlier in the inning to reach base and eventually tried to score. When she came to home plate, she barrelled into Goshen catcher Krystal Camacho.

The collision was so rough most assumed Conn left the game because of an injured shoulder or collarbone, but that was the farthest thing from it. Turns out the home plate umpire tossed Conn because she made no attempt to get down to touch the plate.

"She was ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct," O'Dell, playing the role of diplomat, said.

Losing Conn has a ripple effect. IHSAA rules say if an athlete is ejected from a game, he or she automatically must sit out the next game.

Not only does O'Dell lose a senior who bats third in his lineup, he also loses the pitcher he planned to start in the championship game against Elkhart Central. O'Dell said afterward one of the reasons he started King against Goshen was to keep Elkhart Central from seeing Conn pitch - Wawasee and Elkhart Central never played this year. [[In-content Ad]]