Vikings roll on, earn berth in state title game

TWIN FALLS, Idaho – Coeur d’Alene just keeps steamrolling the competition.

The Vikings vanquished the Timberline Wolves 4-1 in the semifinal of the State 5A softball tournament in Twin Falls Friday to advance to today’s title game at noon. Should CdA lose the noon game, there will be a winner-take-all title game immediately following.

“They hear this all the time. A lot of people say, ‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’ Well, that’s exactly backward, and that’s what I tell them,” Vikings head coach Larry Bieber said. “You’ll see it when you believe it. And they’ve believed in themselves. They believe they can beat anybody.”

Once again, ace pitcher Jenna DeLong allowed only a scant few hits while walking five and striking out four, but her defense deserves as much credit.

Error-free on the day, the CdA defense was led by right fielder Brianna Robson, who twice turned what would have been a base hit into a 9-3 putout to first baseman Heather Helmhout.

Timberline (19-9) only threatened CdA (19-6) in the bottom of the sixth.

With one out, Laura Welch and Alex Valamis both singled to left-center, followed by Shay Craig walking. Stacey Rose popped out to catcher Jordan Corbey for the second out. With the bases loaded, DeLong then had another base on balls.

“And then I walk one. Come on!” DeLong said.

The walk to Kristin Clovis’ base on balls sent in Welch. But DeLong didn’t despair.

“My team was gonna get me outta that jam whether I threw it down the middle or not,” she said.

They did just that when Amy Schmeckpepper grounded out to DeLong to end the inning and a possible Timberline rally.

The Timberline defense was having an off game, committing six errors.

Three came in the fourth inning which allowed Corbey and Robson to score. Only one of CdA’s runs was earned.

“All of us came into this tournament wanting to win,” Helmhout said. “All of us have shown a lot of heart and we’re just playing our game. It’s amazing.”

Earlier in the day, DeLong struck out 13 and allowed only four hits and two walks as the Vikings knocked off the Highland Rams 5-0 in quarterfinal action.

In the elimination bracket, Lake City just won’t give up.

Despite dropping a first-round game to Timberline Thursday, the Timberwolves battled back in the elimination bracket, winning three loser-out games in a row to advance to today’s third-place game.

A win against Timberline, which beat Skyline 5-4 to advance to the championship semifinals, will secure a spot in the title game against archrival Coeur d’Alene.

“We split with them in the regular season,” Timberwolves head coach Laura Tolzmann said of a possible rematch with CdA. “But we want to play Timberline and take it back at them to face (the Vikings).”

To get there, the Timberwolves (22-6) had to knock off Mt. View (15-10) 6-5 in eight innings, Highland (27-2) 7-5 and Eagle (16-11) 3-0 in the fourth-place game.

In the fourth-place game, Lake City took advantage of Eagle early on, scoring the only runs of the game in the first inning.

Richelle Fenebock and Stephanie Saadoun singled, and Chantel Waide reached on a Mustangs fielding error to load the bases. Eagle pitcher Joni Cook threw a wild pitch to score Fenebock. Amanda Krier and Lela Work scored the other two runs with base hits.