Warriors Late Lead Drifts Away In Sectional Loss To Lakeland
Warriors Late Lead Drifts Away In Sectional Loss To Lakeland
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Anthony Anderson-
Warriors Late Lead Drifts Away In Sectional Loss To LakelandLAGRANGE — When freshman Abigayle Smith drilled a home run in the bottom of the sixth inning right off the right-field scoreboard – a scoreboard that until that point had shown no runs for either side – Wawasee looked momentarily poised to take a stirring 1-0 victory over the host Lakers in Tuesday’s Class 3A Lakeland Sectional softball semifinal.
That meant just three outs to go for the Warriors, who were the designated home team in the bracket despite being the visitors geographically.
Those mere three outs, though, suddenly turned unattainable until it was too late in a seventh inning that went haywire.
No. 7 Laker hitter Kendall Moore answered with a home run of her own to lead off the seventh and knot the count at 1-all. No. 8 hitter Hannah Harris followed with a single.
Then when Wawasee catcher Graceanne Kerlin made an errant throw down the first-base line on a sacrifice bunt attempt on a day that she and the rest of the Warrior defense were otherwise pristine, it set the stage for three unearned runs and a 4-1 Lakeland win.
“I thought that was it,” Wawasee rookie coach Chloe McRobbie admitted of whe-ther she expected Smith’s homer to wind up the difference. “I was like, three up, three down. All you gotta do is keep the ball low and that game is ours, but when a team wants it bad enough, that’s what happens.”
The Lakers (14-7) advan-ced to Thursday’s 5:30 p.m. sectional championship against Fairfield, which blanked West Noble 8-0 in Tuesday’s second semifinal. The Falcons beat Lakeland 9-3 during the regular season.
The Warriors (14-11) closed a season in which they doubled their Northern Lakes Conference win total by going 10-4 in league play and upped their overall victory tally by a half-dozen. Except for Smith’s homer, though, Wawasee struggled in its finale to solve Laker ace Elise Edwards (12-6).
The senior allowed just two other hits — fourth-inning singles by Kerlin and fellow senior Bethany Flannery — and struck out a season-high 11 while walking nobody.
“Lakeland’s got a pretty good pitcher, (but) we didn’t make the adjustments at the plate enough,” McRobbie said.
Nevertheless, unflinching Warrior sophomore Kiaundra Olson went even an inning deeper than Edwards in terms of allowing no runs.
Through the first six frames, Olson gave up just five singles and stranded six Lakers. Though she struck out just one, she also issued just one walk over those innings, before being hit hard in the seventh.
Olson got spiffy play behind her from, among others, Flannery, who stabbed a liner at short in the second inning and threw to first to double off a baserunner, and center fielder Danielle Jenkins, who made a running, arm-extended catch near the wall in the fourth.
“I was not expecting this game to be this low-scoring,” said McRobbie, whose club lost 17-8 to the Lakers early in the regular season. “I thought they’d get a couple, we’d get a couple and it would be a high-scoring affair, but when the pitchers do their job and you have tough defense, today’s what it looks like.”
Though it may not have yielded dividends on Tuesday, McRobbie proclaimed that Wawasee’s greatest growth this season came offensively.
“I’m definitely proud of my girls for coming around hitting-wise,” McRobbie said. “We’ve almost doubled and in some cases almost tripled our offensive stats in every category from last year. Last year, we had about eight (actually 10) homers and this year we have 29. We are gonna miss those senior starters (Flannery, Kerlin and Faith Swihart) next year, but I’ve also got a young, talented team that I think’s going to want it even more next year.”
