Dreams stunned by late rally
Warriors score 5 in last 2 innings
MADISON – Kewaskum had victory within its grasp not once, not twice but three times.
Each time the gamewinning play eluded the Indians softball team and eventually so did a chance to play for a state championship.
Rice Lake junior Emily Fell’s bases-loaded single in the eighth inning Friday brought home the tying and winning runs in a 6-5 eight-inning victory over Kewaskum in the Division 2 semifinals of the WIAA state tournament at Goodman Diamond. The victory sent Rice Lake (22-7) into the championship game at 4 p.m. Saturday where it will face Beloit Turner which earned a 3-0 victory over New London.
Depending on perspective the result was either exhilarating or excruciating
Not only did Rice Lake trail by three runs heading into the bottom of the seventh, it was down to its last out and had yet to cut into that deficit. That’s when Kewaskum’s defense betrayed it and a two errors and a wild pitch allowed Rice Lake to tie the game.
The Indians bounced back to take the lead in extra innings, but in the bottom of the eighth Rice Lake loaded the bases with one out and Fell, the team’s leading hitter with a .516 batting average, delivered the dagger.
The seeds of the defeat, however, were planted an inning earlier.
“We gave them five outs in the seventh inning,” Kewaskum coach Jeff Gosse said. “They’re a very good team. You can’t give good hitting teams like they are any extra outs.”
The loss capped a 25-4 campaign for Kewaskum that resulted in the school’s first state tournament appearance. It also put a damper on what was shaping up to be a pretty good afternoon for Kennedy Lehn.
The sophomore pitcher arrived at the state softball tournament with a 23-3 record, a 0.77 earned-run average and 307 strikeouts in 163 1⁄3 innings.
Friday delivered in the circle and at the plate. She finished with nine strikeouts and worked out of jams in the second and third innings. At the plate, the team’s clean-up hitter did just that, going 3 for 4 with three runs batted in.
She drove in a run Kewaskum’s two-run first and brought home another in a two-run fifth inning that gave Kewaskum a 4-0 lead.
Gosse thought she started to tire in the circle during the fifth inning when allowed a run, but she sent Rice Lake down in order in the sixth and retired two of the first three Warriors she faced in the seventh.
Then everything fell apart.
“It’s not just one thing alone,” Gosse said. “It’s not on Kennedy’s shoulders or any of the errors. It’s all these things combined that create this situation.”
After Gosse struck out Fell for the second out of the seventh, junior catcher Sam Soley singled to bring home Rice’s Lake’s second run. Senior slugger Dana Covey then sent a well-hit ball to leftcenter, but the leftfielder got a good jump on the ball, had it in her glove …. and dropped it.
That error put runners on second and third. A wild pitch allowed Rice Lake’s third run to score and the fourth crossed the plate after the third baseman on a misplay of a ground ball.
“Plays that some of these girls make in their sleep, they didn’t make in their sleep,” Gosse said. “This is a whole new experience for us. They’re young. They’re going to learn.”
Lehn tripled to open the eighth inning to set up Kewaskum’s fifth run. After the hit, she was replaced with courtesy runner Sydney Rosenthal, a senior who scored on a fielder’s choice in the next at-bat to give the Indians a 5-4 lead.
Rice Lake wouldn’t be denied, though. Three of its first four batters in the bottom of the eighth reached to set the stage for Fell, whose hit sent the program to the title game for the third time. It won the 2004 championship and was the runner-up in 2010.
Beloit Turner 3, New Lon don 0: Kailyn Packard struckout 10 while walking three batters in pitching a one-hit shutout for Turner (24-2), which scored all of its runs in the first inning during its semifinal victory over New London (23-6)