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SYRACUSE -ÊIn the eyes of Wawasee's softball players, who had already piled into the bus, Bo O'Dell was dilly-dallying.
So they let their coach, one of the few stragglers still left on the softball diamond, know about it.
"Hey coach," one said. "Some of us have dates tonight."
That was Saturday. Today is Tuesday. Now the only date the players care about is 4:30 this afternoon.
That's when the Warriors meet Fort Wayne Northrop in the Concord Regional game. They advanced by beating Goshen 10-0 and Elkhart Central 7-4 in the Warsaw Sectional.
Wawasee's sectional storyline wrote itself: Team loses Jaime Conn, ace and .400 hitter; team rides to sectional win on arm of No. 2 pitcher Megan King.
Wawasee played 16 innings in two games in the sectional; King pitched all 16. She struck out 11 in the 10-0 five-inning win over Goshen, then gutted out 11 innings in Saturday's win over Elkhart Central. Had senior right-hander Conn been available, she would have pitched against Elkhart Central. But she wasn't, because the IHSAA made her serve a one-game suspension after her slide into home plate in the Goshen game was deemed "unsportsmanlike" by an umpire.
With Conn as their inspiration, the Warriors won Saturday.
She returns today, and they need her. The 19-11 Warriors meet a 27-5 Fort Wayne Northrop team.
One pitcher, senior right-hander Lisa Kendall, has 24 of those wins. Kendall, 24-5, is up for the Miss Softball award.
"We just want," O'Dell said, "to find a way to put the ball in play to see if they can play defense."
O'Dell compared her to one pitcher the Warriors faced during the season, Plymouth's Lisa Mattke. Mattke is regarded as the top pitcher in the Northern Lakes Conference, and the Pilgrims beat Wawasee both times she pitched.
"We put the ball in play with some good contact against Mattke," O'Dell said. "We feel confident that we can have some good at-bats against Kendall.
"We can't swing at the pitches she'll want us to swing at. We have to wait her out for a good pitch."
Already O'Dell was playing spin doctor, putting the pressure on Fort Wayne Northrop by diverting it from his team.
"I would think the pressure is on (Northrop)," he said. "They have a longer trip. We've been to Concord before, and it's a place we feel comfortable with. We expect to have more fans make the trip to support us."
O'Dell remained non-committal about his starting pitcher. Conn is the ace, but he doesn't easily forget King's arm is a big reason the Warriors are at the regional.
"Megan's played her heart out for us this last week, and just for that she deserves to throw," O'Dell said. "But Jaime would have thrown for us in the championship game Saturday."
With a 20th win, Wawasee sets the school record for most wins in a season. The Warriors, who have won three sectional titles - all in the last three years - have won one regional semifinal game. With the class system, the regional is now one championship game.
"We hope to make the game as competitive as we can and come out with a regional championship," O'Dell said. "This is our third regional. We're ready for the next step."
If they don't take it, O'Dell knows at least his Warriors are starting to make a name for themselves with three straight sectional titles.
"It's nice to take home the (sectional) plaque and trophy and give Jaime Conn one more game to play," he said. "It's something the program is built on. We look at the trophy cases and see how successful the wrestling program is and how successful the gymnastics program is. It takes this to build upon that and to get other girls to come out."
