Published: May 13, 2008 11:40 pm            

SOFTBALL: Panthers rule MIC softball

Davenport and Co. rough up Eastern to cap perfect run

GREENTOWN — Western softball player Alisha Davenport and her senior teammates had been waiting for Tuesday night for a long time.

Finally in position for a Mid-Indiana Conference championship, after six years of drought, the Panthers pounced Tuesday. Western smashed Class 2A No. 2 Eastern 6-0 at the Comet diamond to finish off a perfect MIC run and claim the title outright. Had Eastern won, the two teams would have shared the league hardware.

Asked how big the victory was, Davenport said “huge, huge. We’ve always wanted to beat Eastern — no offense — but it’s always a big rivalry.”

Getting able to take control of the league hardware for the first time since 2001 was extra special.

“We’ve talked about it since I was a freshman,” Davenport said. “Now that I’m a senior and we finally won it, it’s really exciting.”

Western coach Jim Clouse had been pointing to the Eastern game all season as a potential title tilt. The Panthers had already wrapped up a share of the title, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy their hunger.

“Going in, we knew worst-case scenario is that we come out with a share of it, but we really didn’t want to share it,” he said. “And not just that, but Eastern’s such a quality program that to beat them on their home field, to beat them at all, obviously not many people have done that this year. I thought we played extremely well. Defensively especially we were solid.”

Western (14-7, 7-0 MIC) won by doing what few teams have done this season — by getting to Eastern ace Tristan Dykes. Western took the upper hand with two runs in the top of the fourth.

Davenport walked to start the rally, then Kristen Larrick singled and the bounding ball got through a Comet outfielder allowing Davenport to race all the way home from first. On the next at-bat, Morgan Oilar hit into a fielder’s choice and the Comets elected to try to get the out at home but Larrick slid home just in time.

Putting the Comets in a hole was a key for the Panthers.

“[The Comets’] M.O. really is they hang in the game and don’t give up runs and Tristan keeps them in the game until they get a few,” Clouse said. “Well, those two runs were paramount. Those two runs put the pressure on them. They have to score some runs and [the lead] gives us a little breathing room.”

Western then ended nearly any doubt of the outcome with a four-run fifth inning. Brittani Snyder singled to lead off, then Brooke Jackson’s one-out single put runners at first and second for cleanup hitter Davenport. The Western deep threat then delivered the killer blow, crushing a 3-run homer to right-center field.

“What a bomb that was,” Clouse said.

That was game, set and match for the game, and the conference race.

“[We] are definitely not used to playing from behind, and once Alisha hit the ball out, it essentially was not reachable with the kind of offense that they were generating,” Eastern coach Jerry Haines said.

All that remained was for Western to squelch any rallies by the Comets. Eastern (20-6, 5-2 MIC) put runners on second and third in the bottom of the fifth but a great play at shortstop by Jackson — who gunned down a runner on a close play at first — ended the inning.

Eastern didn’t get a runner past first base after that as Brooke Pingleton finished a complete game. She issued six walks — four to Eastern leadoff hitter Jessica Rainey — but gave up just three hits and fanned three batters in the shutout.

“She was very nervous going into the game, more nervous than she’s been all season,” Clouse said of Pingleton, “but she battled through. She walked more than she normally does, but she kept battling and the defense came through with some nice plays when we had to have them.”

Pingleton improved to 5-0 in MIC starts and did not yield a single earned run in league games.

To keep a spotless scoreboard, Pingleton had to survive Eastern loading the bases in the second and third innings. Eastern left six runners on base in the first three innings and ended the second inning with a runner being picked off third.

“They have a good hitting team, but we lost the game in the first four innings when we didn’t plate any runs when we had lots of runners in scoring position,” Haines said. “We did the same thing [Monday] night against Hamilton Heights, very similar game except we finally scored late. Whereas [Tuesday] Western finally got hitting the ball. They certainly deserved the game, we didn’t put together a good game at all.”

Western managed 10 hits. Larrick had three singles, Casey Hattabaugh singled twice and knocked in Western’s final run in the fifth, and Jackson had two singles.

Dykes set an Eastern record for most strikeouts in the season when she fanned a batter in the fifth. She entered five behind Angie Howell’s mark of 266 set in 2000 and finished the game with 268 strikeouts.

        

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