Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
COLUMBIA CITY - Warsaw softball coach Craig Helfrich has, at times, questioned Michelle Liebsch's demeanor on the pitching rubber. She smiles the majority of the time, and he worries how this does nothing to intimidate the other team.
Liebsch may have ended the questions for good with Saturday's performance in the Columbia City 3A Regional.
Liebsch struck out the first nine hitters she faced and smiled her way to 16 strikeouts in Warsaw's 2-0 win over Huntington North (12-18). The game was just the first round, and the 21-11 Tigers were supposed to play No. 3 27-3 Lafayette Jeff in the championship, but rain postponed the game.
The championship will be played at Columbia City's Morsches Park at 4:30 this afternoon.
"We're confident," Warsaw coach Craig Helfrich said. "If we play like the way we did, we'll be fine. We're happy, but we're not content. We're one win away from the state finals. At 21-11 after starting 0-4, we're playing our best softball when we need to be."
The right-handed Liebsch, who is 16 and will be a junior next school year, went to three balls on only one batter and threw first-pitch strikes to 19 hitters of the 22 hitters - one over the minimum for a seven-inning game - she faced. The shutout was Warsaw's 12th in 32 games. Each shutout the Tigers get, they add to their school record.
Huntington's two hits came in the fourth inning, a bloop single over the left side of the infield and a ground-ball single that took a bad hop over third baseman Jacquie Burns' glove.
This was without Liebsch's good stuff. She would know. When someone mentioned she didn't go to three balls on any hitter, she said, "No, I had a full count on one."
She improved to 12-5 by relying on pitch she threw for a ball, a high fastball.
"It wasn't my best," Liebsch insisted. "The stats make it look like it, but I wasn't really pitching my best. I wasn't as fast as I could be.
"They just couldn't lay off the high stuff."
Liebsch wasn't being modest. Huntington North coach Paris Seibold agreed with her assessment.
"We've played a lot of pitchers who have the speed and accuracy she had," he said. "I didn't see much lift in her ball. I didn't see much drop in her ball. Looked to me like she just threw it in there."
Huntington, at one time 3-13, was 9-4 in its last 13 games and had sectional wins over Marion, Kokomo and Huntington North, all above-.500 teams.
But the Vikings, who scored nearly seven runs per game in the sectional, forgot how to swing the bats against Warsaw.
They swung late. They swung half-heartedly. They kept the bat on their shoulders for called third strikes. They bunted through pitches for strikes.
But what may have baffled Seibold the most was the way his hitters swung at pitches above their heads from start to finish. They expanded their strike zones, a case where coaches feel the batters do more to get themselves out than the pitcher does.
"It really surprised me when I saw our swings, " he said. "We just didn't pick the ball up. It baffles me. We swung at too many balls that were up. When we did swing, we swung at a ball. When we didn't swing, they were strikes.
"I think sometimes panic sets in. The first three hitters are all gone pretty quick. You see them strike out and you're hitting sixth or seventh, you go, 'Oh no. If they can't hit her, I can't hit her.' Mentally, that affected us. This game's mental. We just weren't there."
Liebsch overshadowed a strong pitching performance by Huntington right-hander Kelli Seibold, Paris Seibold's daughter. Seibold pitched the complete game, allowing six hits and three walks. Two of the walks came in the third inning. Those two walks turned into Warsaw's two runs.
But she nearly pitched around the walks to keep the game 0-0.
With one out, Seibold walked Marie Brown and Laura Overton back to back. Melissa Himes blooped a single to right field to load the bases. Seibold struck out Burns for the second out then had Amie Poling down two strikes when Poling delivered another bloop hit behind first baseman Annie Barnum.
"In the tournament we have had the key hit when we needed it, and we made her pay for the walks," Helfrich said.
Neither Barnum nor second baseman Mandy Augenstein caught the ball, one which Paris Seibold said should have been caught for the third out of the inning. Augenstein appeared to have the better angle as the ball was straight behind the first baseman.
"That ball just killed us," Paris Seibold said. "I thought the ball should have been caught. The first baseman started running with her glove out. That's a bad sign. If she turns, runs, squares up and gets help from the second baseman, she catches it.
"It was lack of communication. The second baseman either has to help the first baseman - say, 'You've got room' - or take it herself."
Brown and Overton scored on Poling's single.
If Liebsch was the highlight, Poling was the sideshow.
She drove in Warsaw's two runs and delivered Warsaw's defensive play of the day in the top of the seventh. Marissa Sells started off the inning with a grounder up the middle that appeared ticketed to center field for the Vikings' third hit of the day. But Poling charged to her left, snagged the ball and threw Sells out at first to thwart any Huntington hopes of a late rally.
WARSAW 2
HUNTINGTON NORTH 0
Warsaw ab r h rbi
Brown cf 2 1 1 0
Overton lf 2 1 1 0
Himes 2b 3 0 2 0
Burns 3b 3 0 1 0
Poling ss 3 0 1 2
Colt c 3 0 0 0
Fribley rf 3 0 0 0
Jones 1b 2 0 0 0
Keirn pr 0 0 0 0
Kurosky dh 1 0 0 0
Totals 22 2 6 2
H. North ab r h rbi
Chafin cf 3 0 1 0
Sells rf 3 0 1 0
Seibold p 3 0 0 0
Lund c 3 0 0 0
Zeissig dh 2 0 0 0
Williamson ss 2 0 0 0
Barnum 1b 2 0 0 0
Fusselman lf 2 0 0 0
Augenstein 2b 2 0 0 0
Totals 22 0 2 0
H. North (12-18) 000 000 0 - 0
Warsaw (21-11) 002 000 x - 2
LOB-Warsaw 6, Huntington North 1. 2B-Brown, Burns. S-Kurosky. CS-Chafin.
Warsaw ip h r er bb so
Liebsch W, 12-5 7 2 0 0 0 16
H. North ip h r er bb so
Seibold L, 11-14 6 6 2 2 3 4
