Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Warsaw, a softball team playing well right now, met Wawasee, a team not playing so well, on Monday.
Before this game, Warsaw had won three games in a row to move to 4-4. Wawasee had played three games and was 0-3.
Nothing changed.
Warsaw's still rolling. Wawasee's still struggling.
The Tigers beat Wawasee 10-1.
The Tigers had good hitting, good pitching and solid defense.
Their hitters knocked right-handed Wawasee starter Jaime Conn out of the game after one-third of an inning. Conn walked Warsaw leadoff hitter Alyssa Raphael and then got Shanna Smith to pop out for her only out.
Jill Schlotterback, Shannon Barger and Rachel Liebsch then hit three straight doubles to put Warsaw up 3-0 after one inning.
Wawasee scored its only run in the top of the second. Sara Frantz singled, then went to third when Schlotterback, a left fielder, overran the ball. Megan King's single drove Frantz home to make it 3-1.
Then it was all Warsaw.
The Tigers tallied seven hits and five runs in the third and fourth innings against Wawasee reliever Angie Hoover. Winnie Hake, the last hitter in Warsaw's order, delivered the big blow. Hake went 3 for 3, and her single in the bottom of the third drove in two runs to push Warsaw's lead to 5-1.
If the Tigers quit scoring then they would have been OK, because they had Liebsch on the mound. Liebsch was dealing - she kept Wawasee hitless after the third inning.
Liebsch finished with a complete-game four-hitter. She struck out six and walked only one and improved to 4-3.
"Rachel's a good pitcher," Wawasee coach Bo O'Dell said. "We had our chances against her. She took advantage of our weaker hitters and put them away. That's a good pitcher. You know the ones you need to sit down, and you know the ones you need to pitch carefully to who might hurt you."
Warsaw, 5-4, has won the last four games by a combined 35-3. Good pitching? Yes. But it's more than that, Warsaw coach Rod Yoder said.
"We've been getting good pitching," Yoder said, "but it's not like we're standing back and waiting on the pitcher to shut them down. We're not waiting on strikeout after strikeout. We're playing good defense."
Ten runs, seven wild pitches, five errors and four hits later, Wawasee coach O'Dell gathered his 0-4 team in the dugout after the game. His first question: "What happened out there?"
"We're just not playing very well," he said. "The most disappointing thing is that we're not hitting the ball. We have a good offensive team. We're just not seeing it. Some of the people who are seeing it have mechanical problems.
"As the game went on, it was a matter of people not making the plays - as far as hitting the right cutoffs and getting to the ball."
Warsaw's season ended last year on their home field when Wawasee beat the Tigers in the sectional. But Yoder said revenge wasn't the motivating factor against Wawasee.
"It's a different group of kids, a different situation," Yoder said. "There was no rah-rah-rah. We knew Wawasee wasn't the same team and was off to a slow start. They had to replace three big seniors from last year.
"It was a matter of us going out and taking advantage of things."
Wawasee has a 4:30 p.m. Wednesday game at Tippecanoe Valley.
"We'll have to make improvements," O'Dell said, "but that's hard to do when we have six games this week. We do have a lot of games left. We can't give up and get down on each other."
Warsaw goes for its fifth straight win in a 4:30 p.m. Wednesday game at Goshen. Warsaw has been under .500 the past couple of years, but these Tigers have Yoder optimistic.
"The last few years, we struggled in our position play, we struggled with the bat, and we struggled as a team," Yoder said. "In the three years I've been back, this is the strongest, most solid team I've had."
