Titans tee off in final

Sophomore Ali Warren set the tone and University’s Murderer’s Row did the rest.

The Titans interlopers beat Rogers’ old guard 20-1 in five innings Thursday to complete a 16-0 season and become the expanded Greater Spokane League’s first official slowpitch softball champion in their first try at the sport.

The Pirates, an original member of the five-team Spokane Public Schools league before it expanded to include three Spokane Valley teams this year, were making their third finals appearance. They had won one championship previously.

“This one would have been better because it’s actually a GSL championship,” said Rogers coach CrisCoffield. “When you don’t hit you can’t win slowpitch games.”

That certainly wasn’t the case for the host Titans. The 205-foot fence surrounding their field couldn’t hold the softball, as U-Hi hit three out of the yard to give it 24 home runs for the year.

Cleanup hitter Warren’s grand slam put U-Hi ahead 4-0 en route to a nine-run first inning.

“I’m really excited,” said Warren of her third home run this year. “It’s nice to get into the championship game and help the team out.”

The score was 16-0 after two, as Michelle Wells hit a two-run homer and Alyssa Hawley added a three-run blow. It was only the third game back for Wells since breaking a wrist in a fastpitch fall league game the first week of the GSL season.

The Titans had 21 hits in four turns at bat. Hawley was 4 for 4 with five runs batted in, Warren was 3 for 4 and four other players had two hits.

Rogers managed just eight hits, three in the top of the fifth inning when Denisha Whitehead scored on the second error by third baseman Warren. The Pirates finished with five miscues.

“You give a team five or six outs in an inning and of course they’ll make you pay for it,” said Coffield, who had hoped for a fast start, but instead had the reverse happen to them. “When you put nine runs on the board in the first inning, that does something to the other team’s morale.

Only once this year, Tuesday’s 6-5 semifinal victory over Shadle Park, were the Titans held to less than double figures for runs.

U-Hi coach John Schuh said the top four hitters in his lineup, Riki Schiermeister (seven home runs), Hawley, Ashley Fargher (nine homers) and Warren consistently produced on offense.

“The thing is, with so many balls being put in play you better play good defense,” Schuh said. “I think for us, we typically played pretty good defense. When we didn’t, like anybody else, we got into a ball game we didn’t like.”

What was not to like about the GSL title game?

After rallying from a 5-4 deficit in the semifinals, the Titans started with a bang and kept going.

Winning the championship in their inaugural try was a goal they set for themselves at the start of the season, Schuh said.

Schuh said it was nice to go 14-0 in league to make the playoffs, but going 14-1 or 15-1 “wasn’t going to cut it.”

“We worked really hard for this,” said Warren, “so it was nice to win it.”