Mead, U-Hi earn berths
What sets apart this Mead girls softball team that won the Greater Spokane League regular season title and is headed to regionals and recent Panther teams?
“We make the plays we need to,” Mead coach John Barrington said after the Panthers had rolled past Shadle Park 5-0 in the first round of the District 8 4A playoffs at Franklin Park. “That play (pitcher) Kim (Watson) made on the ball that hit the plate, that was a play we didn’t make last year.”
Just a routine play leading off the sixth inning? Maybe, but it was the routine plays that ended up deciding Thursday’s classic pitchers duel between Watson and Shadle’s Stephanie Trudeau.
Mead made them, Shadle didn’t.
Which was typical of the other three first-round games as well. University (19-2) also advanced to regionals by stopping Lewis and Clark 3-1, despite being out-hit 7-5. And, in loser-out games, Mt. Spokane (12-8-1) scored a run in the bottom of the seventh to edge East Valley 4-3 while Central Valley (11-9) held off Gonzaga Prep 2-1.
Up until the fifth inning, the Highlanders (16-5) didn’t have to make many routine plays.
Trudeau (16-5) was doing all the work. To that point she had scattered four hits, while picking up strikeouts for 12 of the first 13 outs.
“We were really keyed up at first and were swinging too hard,” Barrington said. “You can’t do that against Steph, she’s too good.”
But, with two out and no one on, Trudeau faltered. She walked Chantal Hughes-Gardner and Halley Cey on full counts.
Up stepped Lacey Parry, a .462 hitter during the season who had homered off Trudeau the first time the teams met. This time, after fouling off three two-strike pitches, she hit a ball up the middle. Trudeau knocked it down, gathered it in, but, having to hurry, threw wildly past first. Hughes-Gardner and Cey scored.
Mead (19-1-1) then put the game away with a three-run sixth, aided greatly by two Shadle errors and some clutch bunting.
The bunts, a sacrifice by Megan Bertolero that was thrown away, and a push bunt by Tiffany Wilkinson that made it to the outfield and scored a run, seemed to fluster the Highlanders.
“I was just trying to bunt it past third,” said Wilkinson, who had done just that in the second inning. “I wasn’t looking at the shortstop, but it all worked out.”
With the five-run lead, all that was left was to see if Watson (19-1) would complete the no-hitter she carried into the seventh. With two out and one on, Watson got two strikes on Trudeau. But the junior reached out dunked a ball down the right-field line for the first hit. Kinzee Powell followed with a line single to load the bases, but Watson came through with her 12th strike out to end it.
“I felt like I was more effective in the later innings,” Watson said. “It was such a close game, I was trying to keep us in it.”
She has a different tack on why the Panthers are successful this year.
“We practice really hard,” Watson said. “We work hard on everything. We just play like we practice.”
In other District 8 games:
University 3, Lewis and Clark 1: Angie Boardman opened the game for the Titans with an inside-the-park home run but it was Molly Owen’s solo shot in the fifth that put it away.
In between, the Titans scored another first-inning run _ on Jessica Keeton’s squeeze bunt _ while the Tigers were threatening in almost every inning.
But LC (13-8) was able to break through only in the third, when Katie Wilmoth tripled home Marie Mann, who had doubled.
“Molly’s home run was nice because it gave us a two-run lead and meant when they had a runner on second, it wasn’t the tying run,” University coach Jon Schuh said. “We played extremely tight tonight from infield on and I don’t know why. I told the girls they played (and won) the state championship last year, a first round district game shouldn’t freak you out.”
Now the Titans will face Mead next Tuesday at Whitworth at 5 p.m. for regional seeding. U-Hi handed the Panthers their only loss this year.
“We’re excited to get another shot at them,” Barrington said. “They are still state champions and the team to beat.”
Central Valley 2, Gonzaga Prep 1: Not only did Whitney McDaniel toss a three hitter, she also scored both Bear runs. The first came in the fourth on a G-Prep (11-10) throwing error, the second in the sixth on a Laura Jackson double.
The Bullpups scored their lone run in the bottom of the seventh when Lyndsay Weber raced home on a CV error.
Mt. Spokane 4, East Valley 3: Shaunae Phillipy’s base hit to right drove home Lacey Kerr with the game winner and moved the Wildcats into today’s winner-to-regional games.
Mt. Spokane went on top 3-0 with two runs in the second and another in the third, but East Valley (9-12) strung together five hits to tie the score in the sixth.
Today’s action moves to Whitworth College, with Shadle Park facing CV at 3 p.m. and Lewis and Clark meeting Mt. Spokane at 5. At stake are the GSL’s final two berths in next weekend’s regionals.
Richland and Pasco had already secured two of the Big Nine’s four berths during league play, with Kennewick and Kamiakin winning spots Thursday.