SYRACUSE – In a game that looked primed to be a high-scoring affair, the runs ceased after three innings, with the Warsaw softball team coming out on top 4-3 at Wawasee. “I felt both teams caught a couple breaks to score early, but didn’t catch some breaks later in the game,” Warsaw coach Jim Speicher said. “It was a pretty even ballgame, I thought, all the way through. Both teams had some opportunities to score some runs and didn’t, and both of us caught some breaks and scored when we probably shouldn’t have.” The victory improved the Lady Tigers’ record to 4-9 overall and 4-3 in the Northern Lakes Conference, while Wawasee fell to 5-7 (2-5 NLC). With base-running blunders going both ways, Warsaw had a runner get picked off at third base twice in the same inning. In the third, the first pick off occurred when senior Kayla Snider attempted to take third on a bounced pitch, but was caught. Later, sophomore Taylor Stiver was picked off while leaning too far off the bag, and Wawasee sophomore catcher Paige Hlutke caught her to end the inning. Despite those two gaffs Warsaw still plated two runs in the frame, both coming on a single by sophomore Sidney Hernandez that drove in sophomore Karly Jones and senior Ashton Warren. Those two runs put Warsaw up 4-2, but Wawasee sliced it to 4-3 in the bottom of the inning when freshman Kylee Rostochak scored after an errant throw to first base on a ground ball hit by Hlutke. Rostochak’s unearned run was the last to be scored in the game, although Wawasee did make it interesting in the bottom of the seventh. Following a leadoff hit by sophomore Alli Ousley, Rostochak came to the plate, having put down a sacrifice bunt in the fifth. Instead of taking the bat out of his most dangerous hitter’s hands, first-year Wawasee coach Hans Griepentrog allowed her to swing, having already gone 3 for 3 with two runs scored in the game Instead of inflicting damage, Rostochak hit a weak pop up to foul ground between home and third, which was easily caught by Snider. “She’s batting about .470 right now and I second-guessed myself the whole time when I went to talk to her about bunting the second pitch,” Griepentrog said. “I told her to flip it to rightfield if she got a pitch to the outside. It didn’t work out for us.” Senior Madi Anderson then came up, and with home run power of her own, she instead hit a hard groundball to short, which was scooped by Stiver, who ran to second to begin the unassisted double play that ended the game. In all, Wawasee left seven runners on base, five in scoring position, but Warsaw wasn’t much better, leaving six on the base paths, five of which were at least at second. But when Warsaw did leave runners on base, including two at third, Speicher was happy with how his girls responded, despite having lost three-straight games. “There was a lot more positive energy than we’ve had,” he said. “I’m not sure what to attribute that to, because we didn’t play real well last night (in a 10-3 loss at Columbia City). We just challenged them to just play through adversity better than they had been. We seem to wait for bad things to happen. I don’t think we did that tonight. Even when we made a couple base-running errors, I felt they went back out to play defense really locked in. This is the best three-phase game we’ve played.” By staying positive, the Lady Tigers got a win in the middle of a span in which they play five games in five nights, extending into tonight’s home game against Carroll and ending Friday night at home against Goshen. “This was big for us,” Speicher said. “Even if we had given up a hit there, and with a double, been beaten (in bottom of the seventh), we couldn’t have played much better. But, psychologically, to come away with a win is huge for us when we’re playing five games this week. It’s a chance to take a deep breath and go back to business.” Griepentrog has also had to deal with some losing, but with a team featuring four seniors and a bulk of its talent in the sophomore and freshmen classes, that’s to be expected. “Our girls just get really antsy sometimes,” he said. “Being as young as they are, if they get a good hit in their first at-bat, then the next time they expect the same, instead of just trying to flip it over somewhere.” Wawasee will look to get back on the winning track Friday at home against Elkhart Memorial.
