Shelbyville needed 11 pitches to do what it failed to do against Whiteland ace Debbie Hill earlier this season – score a run.
Meanwhile, Class 4A, No. 2 Whiteland was stymied time and again by Shelbyville pitcher Cheyenne Eads. The sophomore twirled a three-hit shutout to lead the Golden Bears to a 4-0 victory Tuesday and the program’s first-ever regional championship.
“We are treading unknown waters right here,” admitted Shelbyville head coach Mark Hensley. “We have it on our shirt, we are ‘Team 36.’ We’ve been around for 36 years having a softball team here at Shelbyville and after last week, that was only our third sectional and we’d never won a regional.
“Now we’re in the Elite 8. There are eight 4A teams left and going into this year we felt like we were one of the top 10 teams. We’ve done exactly what we were hoping to do. Who knows what will happen from here but, hopefully, we are not just satisfied with making it.”
With Eads in the circle, Shelbyville knows it will have a chance to win. In 14 innings this season against the Warriors (24-3), Eads has now allowed just one run.
“The game plan was to go in there and get outs, not focus on strikeouts, just get outs,” said Eads, who has allowed one run in her last two outings – a 2-1 sectional championship game win over No. 6 Columbus North Friday and Tuesday’s 4-0 win over No. 2 Whiteland.
A pitcher with tight spin on her pitches, Eads kept getting fly ball outs that kept the Warriors off the bases. Of Whiteland’s 21 outs Tuesday, 15 came via fly balls.
“She is not a flamethrower. She is not a girl that will have 250 strikeouts. That’s not her game,” said Hensley. “She puts a lot of spin and a lot of movement on the ball and makes people guess on her pitches. She gets them to take some not-so-great swings.”
Whiteland scored a walkoff win on May 2 over Shelbyville, 1-0. The Golden Bears had just two hits while Hill, who will pitch collegiately at Division III nationally-ranked Trine University, notched 15 strikeouts.
Hensley believed his team was more prepared for Hill, a hard-throwing lefty, as a second meeting came about.
Karissa Hamilton dropped the first pitch of the game from Hill into right field for her team’s first hit. The University of Kentucky recruit stole second base and scored on Hailey Pogue’s single up the middle to stake Eads to a 1-0 lead.
The Warriors’ second and third innings ended on base running mistakes.
Halle Nett rounded second base too far on a Madison Myers single to left field but Caitlyn Richardson threw her out as she retreated to the bag to end the second inning.
In the third, Emma Piercy wanted to score from first base on Hill’s single to right field but Kali Laycock fielded the ball cleanly, hit Hailey Pogue with a relay throw who then fired home to Hamilton. That stopped Piercy halfway around third base and she tried to retreat but Hamilton snapped a throw to Addie Stieneker for another inning-ending mistake.
Shelbyville extended the lead in the fourth after Stieneker produced a leadoff single and Pogue doubled to put two in scoring position with no outs.
Whiteland catcher Haley Wilkerson tried to pickoff Stieneker but the ball rolled into left field and the freshman raced across the plate to make it 2-0.
Eads then pushed a bunt to the right side of the infield which scored Pogue and the crowd of more than 800 started buzzing.
Eads was dominant in the fourth and fifth innings but her defense put her in a jam in the sixth with back-to-back errors.
Hill drew a two-out walk. Hamilton tried to pick off courtesy runner Kylie Matthews and threw the ball into right field. Matthews moved up to scoring position. Wilkerson followed with a grounder up the baseline to Stieneker, who did not make a clean throw across the diamond giving Whiteland the best scoring chance it had all game.
Eads battled with Trinity Borders but induced the third fly ball of the inning to centerfielder Brooke Lipperd, who squeezed it just short of the fence to squash the rally.
“My mentality was to just get the batter,” said Eads. “We had two outs. I just needed to get the batter.”
The Golden Bears extended the lead in the sixth when Hamilton tripled. Her courtesy runner, Anna Shearer, scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-0.
Eads needed 10 pitches to end the game. Hamilton corralled the 14th fly ball out of the game for the first out. Pogue gobbled up a ground ball and threw to first base for the second out.
Myers then popped into foul ground on the third base side and Stieneker settled under it to set off the celebration.
Shelbyville now sits as one of eight teams left in the state tournament. The four-team Bedford North Lawrence Semistate begins at 10 a.m. Saturday.
In the first semifinal, top-ranked Roncalli (30-0), the defending state champion, takes on No. 7 Pendleton Heights (25-6).
Shelbyville (23-5), ranked No. 10 in the final state coaches poll, follows against the host Stars (28-2), ranked No. 5.
The semistate championship game is set for 7 p.m.
In the northern semistate at Harrison (West Lafayette), Crown Point (18-13) takes on No. 15 Penn (22-9) in the first game. Columbia City (28-1) follows against No. 9 Harrison (West Lafayette) (26-1).
