Winamac Softball Regional: Wildcats Hold On For First Regional Title
WINAMAC — There wasn’t much for Whitko softball coach Michele Garr to complain about after her Wildcats won a program-first regional championship Tuesday night.
Well, maybe just one thing.
“No, we can’t win a game five to zero; we’ve got to win it five to four,” joked Garr after her team’s 5-4 title win over host Winamac.
“That’s us though. We’ve got to make it interesting.”
Four days after Whitko won its first sectional title since 2005 with an eight-inning victory over Oak Hill, it looked briefly like Tuesday’s regional might go into extra innings as well.
After trailing most of the night, the Warriors rallied with four runs in the bottom of the seventh to pull within striking distance.
Alexis Grove drew a leadoff walk, Blake Bailey and Kaitlyn Malchow recorded back-to-back singles, and Winamac clean-up hitter Kelsey Crawford took Ellie Snep to right for a two-out, two-run dinger that brought the potential game-tying run to the plate.
But Snep and the Whitko defense never panicked, and when Gabrielle Behny put the ball in play to third, Reannon Hopkins calmly scooped it up and relayed it to Andrea Snavley at first, cuing a little on-field celebration by the Wildcats.
“Going in I knew if I just let the girls put the ball in play, my defense would back me up. When she hit the home run, I was like ‘No big deal’ because Re came back and got the out,” said Snep of the game’s final out.
“Ellie does an amazing job on the mound, but we do have a great defense behind her, which is great for us. Sometimes with good pitching, your defense sometimes falls asleep, and we’re pretty good about staying in there with her,” said Garr.
Whitko’s ability to make plays when Winamac threatened was a recurring theme Tuesday night.
All told, the Warriors left seven runners stranded on base, five in scoring position. Snep pitched to contact, recording just four strikeouts on the night, but the Wildcat defense played errorless defense, including six assists by Snep herself.
By contrast, Whitko made the most of its opportunities at the plate, including three errors by the Winamac defense, which the Wildcats converted into two unearned runs in the sixth and seventh innings.
The visitors’ first run of the night came on a solo shot by Kennedy Krull in the fifth.
Krull was upset coming into Tuesday’s regional contest after her favorite bat got tossed, but she more than made due with her new equipment. The senior shortstop’s bomb straight out to center snapped a scoreless stalemate, and Whitko never trailed again.
“Her bat got tossed before the game, so that wasn’t even her bat; that was Ellie Snep’s bat that she used,” Garr explained. “So we were just kind of trying to get her to be like ‘Hey, don’t worry about the bat.’ And then she hits it out of there, and we’re like ‘Obviously, it wasn’t the bat’ so don’t worry about it. That was, I think, the turning point for us.”
“I was actually really emotional before the game. I just got that bat about a month ago so it kind of really hit me by surprise that they were going to toss it out,” said Krull. “I’ve really been loving on that bat so I was a little emotional, a little upset about it, but, I mean, we used somebody’s else’s bat and that happened so I’m not complaining anymore.”
Whitko tacked on two more runs in the sixth when Anna Ousley looped a leadoff single into left to chase Winamac starter Miranda Hettinger, Shianna Bradley reached on a would-be sacrifice bunt that closer Crawford overthrew to first, Snavely drove in Ousley with a chopper down the right field line, and pinch runner Makayla Berg scored on an error in right on a shallow fly by Hopkins.
The Wildcats scratched out another two in the seventh as number nine hitter Riley Insley coaxed a leadoff walk from Crawford and stole second, Emmalee Duggins moved her over with a sac bunt, and Ousley brought her home with a bunt that was underthrown to first by Crawford. Bradley drove in Ousley in turn with a fly into center, and the visitors extended their lead to 5-0, enough to hold off the tenacious Warriors.
“It feels amazing right now. I’m super proud of these kids. They’ve worked so hard this season,” Garr said.
“This is our school’s first ever regional title. On top of that I’ve waited all four years of my high school career to come home a champion from a sectional championship so the emotions are overwhelming and unreal. It’s amazing,” said Krull.
“We totally deserve it because we’ve been working so hard as a team, and we all just gel together so it just makes it even better,” said Snep.
No. 10 Whitko improves to 23-5 with the win. The Wildcats advance to face No. 3 South Adams — a 5-3 winner over Bremen Tuesday — in the afternoon semifinal at the LaVille Semistate Saturday, set for 1 p.m. The winner advances to the championship at 7 p.m. Saturday night. The semistate opener at Newton Park in Lakeville at 11 a.m. will pit No. 1 Elwood versus No. 11 Boone Grove. Boone Grove outlasted Hammond Noll 3-2 in a 23-inning regional game Wednesday night. The marathon contest was suspended due to darkness Tuesday night.