U-Hi stuns Shadle in district title game

One swing. One run. One more District 8 4A softball championship for the University Titans.

Sophomore Ali Warren’s fourth-inning tape-measure home run was the difference in U-Hi’s 1-0 victory at Whitworth Tuesday over previously unbeaten Shadle Park.

The déjÀ vu-like outcome provided the Titans’ (18-4) their third straight one- run district title victory over the Highlanders (21-1), who for all three years had come in as Greater Spokane League champs.

Both teams, along with Central Valley and Mead, now move on to Friday in 6 p.m. regional games in Richland against teams from the Columbia Basin League for three state berths.

“I talked to (his team) that we’ve been there on the other side of that a few times,” said Titans coach Jon Schuh of a GSL champion losing in the district final. “Maybe it wasn’t us that had to be tight, maybe it was them.”

A crowd estimated in excess of 200 filled the stands of Marks Field, spilled down the entrance ramp, lined the fences and dotted the hill rising above and beyond the right field fence.

They witnessed a well-played game between the two long-standing GSL powers.

The key for U-Hi, said Schuh, “was no freebies. If we could get the top of the order off balance and not on base, good things happen.”

Offensively, he said, the Titans had to lay off Shadle pitcher Sam Skillingstad’s high rise ball. Ironically, it was a pitch up that Warren hit out of the yard, over a tall fence and onto Whitworth’s Pine Bowl football field and track.

It was estimated to travel at least 275 feet by sports information director and game scorekeeper Steve Flegel who said it was the second-longest home run he’d seen hit there.

“When I went up there I knew I had to do something to get the inning off to a good start,” said Warren, who led off the fourth. “Lately I’ve been having trouble keeping my hands up. I thought to myself, ‘hands high and drive it’ and that’s what I did.”

Otherwise it was a game of pitching and defense. U-Hi countered Skillingstad, who pitched a two-hitter and struck out nine, with the duo of freshman Mollie Buelow and junior Shelby Bethel.

“We’ve been doing that the last three years against them,” said Schuh. “Mollie keeps you off balance, Shelby challenges you a little more.”

They allowed four hits, but got sterling defense behind them. Alyssa Hawley in center field robbed Tressa Presidik in the first inning, running down a long fly ball at the fence, her back to the infield.

“I was a little nervous because it was like one in the Mead game that went off my mitt,” said Hawley. “I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”

Shadle threatened again in the third, but key was the first of two of catcher Ashley Fargher’s throws in the game that gunned down potential base stealers.

“There’s a reason she’s back there,” said Schuh. “She has a good arm.”

The stakes get higher for the District 8 finalists. The Highlanders play Moses Lake and the Titans face Walla Walla in their regional openers at Columbia Playfields in Richland.

Central Valley 5, Mead 0 (3rd-4th): Pitcher Alyssa Erickson came within an out of a no-hitter as the Bears (15-8) continued their late-season surge.

The Panthers (15-8) put two runners on in the first inning with a leadoff error and hit batter, but no others until Alex Cey’s two-out seventh inning single.

CV’s No. 3 and 4 hitters Mickenzie Alden and Alexa Morales accounted for all the runs, Morales with a two-run homer in the fourth and RBI single in the fifth.

Alden hit a run-scoring single in the fifth and a home run in the seventh.

Erickson struck out eight.

CV plays Richland and Mead faces district champion Pasco on Friday.