LAGRANGE – Wawasee didn’t get many chances to score, and once the opportunities were gone, they didn’t come back in a 3-0 season-ending loss to Fairfield in the 3A Lakeland Sectional semifinal Wednesday. Before the rain came Tuesday, suspending the contest until Wednesday, Wawasee had one base runner in each of the first two innings. Wawasee opened the top of the third with a one-out, four-pitch walk to Ale Brito, followed by a single to short center by Madie Wilson. Both runners were left stranded. Fretz led off the fourth with a single, but made it no further than second base. After the Fretz single, that was it for the Lady Warriors. Fairfield’s Danica Mast retired the final 12 hitters she faced, allowing only two hits and striking out three in the game. Fairfield opened its scoring when Jalisa Schwartz hit a one-out single in the fourth and later advanced to second on a wild pitch. Mikala Wallace then singled on a pop to short rightfield that fell between the outfielder and the second baseman, allowing Schwartz to advance to third. After Wallace stole second without a throw, Hannalore Jones reached on an error, allowing Schwartz to score and Wallace to move to third. Jones stole second, but Fretz retired the next two hitters to end the threat. Fairfield scored a couple of insurance runs in the sixth. After a Schwartz leadoff single, Wallace drilled a two-run opposite field home run to right, extending the lead to 3-0. Haley Cripe followed with a single and was sacrificed to second, but Fretz coaxed a strikeout and a soft liner to short to end the inning. The damage, however, was done. Wawasee went down 1-2-3 in the seventh to end its season. Lady Warriors head coach Jared Knipper said it was a matter of Fairfield playing just a little bit better. “(Sectional is) just another game,” he said. “You’ve gotta play better than the other team to win and we didn’t do that tonight. “We hit the ball hard, to the fence, and (Fairfield) played deep, and ran down everything. We made some nice plays, but they had a few more things fall underneath, especially after that mistake. “It was uncharacteristic for us to not score a few runs at least.” With the team losing only one player from a 20-6 team Knipper said he believes the Lady Warriors can have another successful season in 2016. “I’m just proud of what the kids accomplished this season, arguably the best season in Wawasee history,” he said. “We didn’t cap it off with a sectional championship. But I’ll take an NLC or a sectional championship any day of the week. “We’ve got to get better, but we only lose one. We lose a key piece with Paige (Hlutke) graduating. She’ll leave some huge shoes to fill as far as leadership and calling the game and knowing how to call pitches. We lose a huge piece of the puzzle with her being gone, she’s been instrumental in what we’ve done the past two years. “But we have eight, really nine girls returning the way we rotate things. We have two kids that can play catcher and do just fine, just not at the level Paige has done yet, but maybe with a little work we can get there next year. “We have six sophomores and three juniors that will return with the expectation to do bigger things next year.” Fairfield improved to 16-6 on the year and will take on Whitko for the sectional title at 7 p.m. tonight.
