Oak Creek advances to state
KENOSHA – The Kenosha Bradford curse is no more.
Facing its No. 1 nemesis, the Oak Creek softball team dished out some postseason payback with a 7-2 victory over the host Red Devils in a WIAA Division 1 sectional final Thursday at Bullen Middle School.
“Honestly, this is who we expected to see,” Oak Creek coach Jeff Trask said. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. We wanted to come here. We wanted to play Bradford. We wanted to win it here.”
Undefeated Southeast Conference champion Oak Creek (28-1) did beat runner-up Bradford (21-7) twice during the regular season by a combined score of 32-7, but the third-ranked Knights had suffered season-ending defeats to the Red Devils in three of the previous four years, including in the sectional semifinal last year and the sectional final the year before.
“They’ve had our number in the playoffs,” Oak Creek junior pitcher Becca Oleniczak acknowledged. “We’ve kind of had their number in the regular season, but the playoffs is a whole different game.”
Oak Creek, which made seven state tournament appearances in nine years from 2000-'08, is finally heading back to Madison.
“I cried,” senior third baseman Tori Golden said. “It was amazing. It’s overwhelming almost.”
Appearing in its fifth consecutive sectional fichances, nal, Bradford took an early lead on a two-out RBI double to right field by Katy Croeker in the top of the first.
The Knights answered with three runs in the bottom half of the inning – two courtesy of a little league home run by Katie Mitchell, who circled the bases after a pair of infield errors.
“We threw the ball around and gave them too many unearned runs today,” Bradford coach John Ruffolo said.
Oak Creek padded its lead on a booming two-out solo home run to center by the 5-foot Golden in the second and an RBI double to right by Jenna Trewyn in the third.
“She crushed that ball,” Trask said about Golden’s fifth homer of the season. “Absolutely crushed it.”
In the fourth, Brooke Lipinski, who led off with a double, and Golden both scored on a wild pitch to make it 7-1.
Bradford had its but Oleniczak wiggled out of three jams, stranding two runners on base in the first and third innings and inducing an inning-ending double play to Mitchell at shortstop with two runners on in the fourth.
“I’m confident with them putting balls in play,” Oleniczak said, “because I know that my infield is going to come up with the outs.”
Jenna Bonofiglio led off the Bradford fifth with a triple to left field and later scored on a ground-out to complete the scoring. Ruffolo was ejected after arguing a call at first base to end the inning.
“I said my piece,” the Bradford coach said. “I guess I said my piece too much. I thought there were some things that needed to be expressed.”