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Who wins Monday's sectional softball game between Warsaw and Wawasee figures to come down to which team gets the key hit.
Both teams pitch well, and the defenses are comparable. That leaves hitting.
Warsaw owns the better record at 17-11 - Wawasee is 13-15. But Wawasee has won the last three sectionals, all at Warsaw.
Even though Warsaw hosts the sectional, the Tigers have not won their sectional since 1994. Then again, after starting 0-4, the Tigers are 17-7 in their last 24 games.
"Wawasee is deceiving," Warsaw coach Craig Helfrich said. "They come in with a record that isn't very good, but then they always sneak up on people. They are a good tournament team that makes few mistakes.
"We beat them two times in the regular season, but we can't overlook them."
Wawasee coach Bo O'Dell expects no different with his 1999 team.
"If this year's any indication, we took Bremen to eight innings last week, and everybody knows the caliber of teams Bremen has," he said. "We've cut our number of errors per game from four to just one in the past month."
Ask both coaches their strengths, they say pitching.
Warsaw set a school record with 10 shutouts this season. Sophomore Michelle Liebsch is 9-5 with an 0.83 ERA and seven shutouts. Freshman Ashley Wyatt is 8-6 with a 1.89 ERA. The most runs the Tigers have given up in any game is nine, in a 9-7 loss their second game of the season.
"We've built our team around Michelle and Ashley," Helfrich said. "They kept us in every game. We lost when we made mental errors."
Andrea Gingerich will pitch for Wawasee. Her 7-12 record is unimpressive, but she sports a 1.68 ERA. She has allowed 111 hits in 133-1/3 innings.
"Our ERA has gone from over three to down around two," O'Dell said.
Whichever team wins this game still won't be considered the favorite to win the sectional title. That goes to 20-5-1 Elkhart Memorial.
"All the papers I looked at have Elkhart Memorial as the favorite," Helfrich said. "That's good, because that means we have nothing to lose. We're not expected to win."
Warsaw led at Elkhart Memorial 2-0 in the sixth inning only to lose 3-2.
The batting statistics give Wawasee the edge over Warsaw.
Wawasee's Megan King led the Warriors in three key categories, batting average (.471), RBIs (24) and stolen bases (13). Also for Wawasee, Sara Frantz batted .408 with 18 RBIs; Tara Hymer hit .350 with 19 RBIs; and Dusty Krull hit .370 with nine RBIs.
For Warsaw, Laura Overton led with a .341 batting average and 21 RBIs. Jacquie Burns hit .333 with 12 RBIs. Marie Brown, the team's lone senior, batted .330 with seven RBIs. Melissa Himes hit .308 with 19 RBIs.
1999 SOFTBALL SECTIONALS
First-round games
Records of local teams are listed in parentheses
May 31
Warsaw Sectional
Warsaw (17-11) vs. Wawasee (13-15), 1 p.m.
Northwestern Sectional
Manchester (3-16) vs. Western (Game two)
Bremen Sectional
Triton (2-22) vs. Bremen (Game two)
June 1
Woodlan Sectional
Whitko (13-10) vs. Concordia, 4:30 p.m.
New Prairie Sectional
Tippecanoe Valley (6-19) vs. South Bend St. Joseph's (Game three)
June 2
Lakeland Sectional
NorthWood (5-17) vs. Northridge/Prairie Heights winner, 5 p.m.
