Elysian Fields pitcher Blair Hickey drove in the go-ahead run with a seventh-inning triple to the center-field wall and the Lady Jackets denied Rosebud-Lott a trip to the Class 2A state softball tournament with a 3-2 win in the Region III final Thursday night.
“That killed us,” Rosebud-Lott coach Keele Wells said. “I mean, that’s not the only thing that killed us. Everyone contributed to this loss. We didn’t get the hits; they did. They deserved it.”
The Lady Cougars, who finished their season with a 21-7 record and advanced farther than any other team in school history, were outhit 7-5 but kept the game tied most of the way by taking advantage of five Elysian Fields errors.
But on the seventh-inning shot that proved to be the game-winner, it was the Lady Jackets (33-9) who got the benefit of the error.
With one out in the inning, Danie’l Goss hit a ground ball back to Rosebud-Lott pitcher Victoria Conners. The ball deflected off Conners to third baseman Kaitlyn Meyer, who couldn’t control it as Goss reached on the error.
That brought up Hickey, who drilled the shot to center. The ball had enough air under it that it looked as though Paige Bartek was going to be able to reel it in. When she missed the ball by mere inches, it reached the wall, Goss reached home and Hickey easily made third.
“She hustled her butt off,” Wells said of Bartek’s attempt. “We tell them all the time, ‘Hustle your butt to the ball and if you don’t reach it, hopefully someone will be behind you.’”
But by then it was too late.
Still, in a game that had been back and forth to that point, no one, especially Elysian Fields coach Shane Smelley, felt it was even close to being over because the Lady Cougars had the final at-bat.
“It was a back and forth and we knew they hit the ball really well. They have all year,” he said. “I was afraid it was going to be the last person with the bat in their hand will win it.”
Bartek was first up in Rosebud-Lott’s seventh and started things off with a hit to left, bringing up Taylor Bartek.
Wells had avoided using the sacrifice bunt much of the season and hadn’t used it at all Thursday night. But it was in the plans here, until she talked to Taylor Bartek, who admitted she probably wasn’t going to be able to put the bunt down because of nerves.
“I told her, ‘Then you have to promise me you’ll get a hit,’” Wells said. “She came through earlier but this time she didn’t, so what can you do?”
Instead, Bartek popped out in foul territory, then Bethani Lee followed with a strikeout. But it still wasn’t over because that brought up Rosebud-Lott’s hottest hitter, Skylar Savage.
“I had read in the paper where she doesn’t like to bunt,” Smelley said of Wells. “But still in that situation, we were still looking for it. Especially since it was the bottom of the lineup. Not that the bottom of their lineup can’t hit, they had been hitting us all day. But you move her to second and you get (Savage) up there, and a hit wins it and she had been hitting the ball hard against us.”
Savage went to the plate 1-for-3 with a triple and a run.
“I told her there’s nobody better we could have up there,” Wells said.
Smelley was on the same page as he went to the circle and discussed the option of walking Savage.
“But I decided if you walk her, you put the runner on second and a base hit scores her anway,” he said. “So I told them, ‘Let’s just go after her and see if we can get her to pop out.”
They got her instead to ground into a fielder’s choice, hitting the ball to second and forcing Paige Bartek.
“The girls know I tell it like it is, and I don’t sugar coat it for them,” Wells said. “We didn’t help ourselves at the plate today. We struck out and popped out too many times.”
Smelley agreed that missed opportunities by the Lady Cougars helped his team survive and advance to its third state tournament.
“We were able to overcome our mistakes and survive,” he said. “That’s a great (Rosebud-Lott) ballclub right there and you hate to see a good ballclub lose, but at this point everyone is good. They’ll be back here next year.”
But for the Lady Cougars, who have no seniors, the goal is getting beyond that.
Said Wells: “I told them to start preparing for next year. ‘Be proud of what you’ve accomplished. You got farther than you did last year, but next year you have to get farther than you did this year.’ I have six juniors who have one more shot at the state tournament and that’s our ultimate goal."
mhood@temple-telegram.com
