Shadle comes up just shy

TACOMA – The symmetry is eerie.

The Shadle Park Highlanders girls softball team lost three games all year, all in the past two weeks. All three defeats came by 2-1 scores and all came in the international tiebreaker, fastpitch’s version of a soccer shootout, with a runner starting the inning on second with none out.

The last of those three losses came Saturday at SERA Fields. It came in 10 innings and it came at the hands of the Prairie Falcons in the State 4A championship game.

With it went the Highlanders hopes for their first state softball title – for now.

“We’ve already talked about it,” said sophomore pitcher Sam Skillingstad. “We said we will be back, and next time we’re going to win it.”

The Highlanders (27-3 with a best second-place state finish) had their chances in the title game, especially in the seventh inning.

Both teams had scored in the fifth, Prairie (28-2 and 4A champions for the second time in six years) on a run-scoring single to right by catcher Emily Robertson, the Highlanders on a run-scoring single to left by left fielder Kinzee Powell.

With extra innings looming, Danielle Lynn opened the bottom of the seventh by doubling off the left-center field fence, missing a game-winning home run by a few feet. Robin Conrad followed with a walk, bringing Heather Jackson to the plate.

The junior shortstop, who had taken away at least three Prairie hits with her glove, tried to take away their title with her bat. But she popped a sacrifice bunt in front of the plate and Robertson made a diving grab. Forced to swing away instead of squeeze – a tactic that ignited a 9-3 win over Richland in Saturday’s semifinal – Skillingstad struck out on a wicked drop from winner Samantha Schoenwald.

Up stepped Powell, who hit her first home run in the semis, tripled later in that game, and had been hitting the ball on the nose all weekend. She did it again, but right at Kristine Bechholdt, and the second baseman threw her out.

“We had our chance in the seventh,” Shadle coach George Lynn said, “and we let it slip away.”

Which is what Prairie had done all game. The Falcons failed to get a sacrifice bunt down all game. But in the 10th they didn’t have to, thanks to two wild pitches.

Skillingstad sailed a rise to the backstop, then, an out later, dumped a drop into the dirt. Samantha Burgan-Strain went to third on the first one and scored easily on the second to give Prairie a 2-1 lead.

Robertson singled on the next pitch, making the miscues moot. Skillingstad struck out the next two hitters, giving her 13 for the game, 50 for the tournament and 423 on the year (in 191 innings). Her season’s ERA finished 0.50.

She yielded three earned runs in the semifinals, but her teammates picked her up, especially lone senior starter Powell.

After Shadle used a lead-off double from China Frost and four consecutive sacrifice bunts – Richland made two errors trying to field them on the wet infield, a condition that pushed back the start time 3 hours – to score three runs in the first, Powell energized the Shadle offense with a towering home run to left off Stacey Ellingsworth in the fourth.

It ignited a two-run rally that increased the lead to 5-0. The Bombers cut it to 5-3 in the fifth and had a chance to get more, but Powell gunned down Danielle White at the plate trying to score from second to end the inning.

“I had faith Sam would strike (Natalie Leyland) out, but when she hit the ball to me I was ready,” Powell said. “I knew if I stayed down on it and picked it clean I had a shot.”

The Highlanders used the rally-killing play to score four times in the top of the sixth to earn a championship date.

It wasn’t to be a happy one, especially considering Shadle had the tying run on third with one out in the bottom of the 10th. But Skillingstad, usually a perfect bunter, pushed her squeeze attempt back to Schoenwald, who threw Conrad out at the plate.

Powell, who will graduate in a couple of weeks, had one more chance, but again she drilled a one-hopper to Bechholdt and the title quest was over.

“Next year,” Powell said as teammates told her goodbye, “they’re taking the title easy.”