Perfect defense, including some outstanding catches; near-excellent pitching; and just enough hitting combined to give the Llano Lady Jackets a 2-1 win over Luling in the bidistrict round of the softball playoffs.
“I think we were more determined than nervous,” head coach Brian Cottle said, “because seven seniors and a bunch of younger girls want to stay in there and fight, and that’s what they did.”
This was a real rarity for a Cottle squad, playing in a game that produced just three runs. Usually that many score after four batters.
Llano, the home team at Hays high school in Buda, April 24, had two outs and nobody on before Katie Yeager, Kelsie Simpson, and Leslie Weihs all singled to load the bases in the first inning. Cierra Thompson then hit a hard smash that shortstop Mercedes Corpus couldn’t handle, and Yeager scored.
“Everyone felt the intensity of the game,” senior centerfielder, Emily Schendel, pointed out. “We knew we had to play our best when you play in a ‘lose-and-you’re out’ contest like this.” Schendel, a major reason the Jackets have reached the playoffs three years in a row, played her best, and that will be detailed later in the narrative.
Thompson grounded the first four Eagles she met before talented freshman pitcher, Kaitlyn Mixon, singled in the second inning. A stolen base, a wild pitch and a passed ball would follow to make it, 1-1.
Senior Jordana Miiller, who became a catcher early in district play after being the best defensive player in the district as a third baseman in 2007, would have made Yogi Berra and Johnny Bench proud with two outs and one on in the second. Corpus hit a foul pop-up that was ticketed for the screen behind home plate. Miiller made a dazzling, one-hand, big-glove grab as she hit the dirt.
Schendel led off the Jackets’ second time at the plate with a double. It would be her 11th of the year, and the 12th would arrive in the fourth inning. “That’s a lot!” she reacted in an enthusiastic voice when interviewed on the postgame radio show.
Mixon got two of her eight strikeouts after the two-base hit, but Miiller collected her team-leading 18th RBI of the season. Llano was up, 2-1, and the scoring for the night had ceased.
“These are fun softball games,” Cierra claimed. “These are the ones we want to play.”
It’s not clear whether exit-polling would’ve supported Thompson’s declaration. You got the feeling more than a few fans wearing Black or Orange would have preferred a 14-1 lead, the kind of contest that happened so much against Bandera or Ingram, but Luling was not to be confused with those game, but undermanned teams.
CT retired the side in order in the third and fourth innings. Eight consecutive Eagles would be sent back to the nest (not the one on Highway 29) from the Miiller catch in the second to a ground out in the fifth.
Senior leftfielder Lauryn Looney was the next Jacket to be called on to sparkle in the grass. She dashed in to corral Sabra Vickery’s swiftly-falling fly ball in the third frame. Looney and the other witnesses for the defense made no errors.
Cottle had praise for the composure his sophomores displayed: “They’ve been playing long-enough now (26 games) to know that school is their first job and softball is their second job. They keep getting better and better all the time.” Hold your applause till all have been introduced: Danielle Delz, Chelsea Pike, Brittany Williams, and Simpson and Yeager (who was a starter as a freshman).
In the fifth inning, the team’s lone junior, shortstop Chelsea Montgomery, had two assists, but with a runner on base and two outs, Sabrina Pearson hit a pop fly just beyond the reach of Thompson, to the shortstop’s side of the circle. The yellow ball looked like it would remain airborne as long as a brick would falling off a mailbox. It was time for Montgomery to take off.
The situation was similar to second baseman Billy Martin of the Yankees racing toward the mound for a seemingly-harmless pop-up by Jackie Robinson of the Dodgers in the seventh inning of Game Seven of the 1952 World Series. The bases were loaded, and three Dodgers were on the move with two outs. The problem was the Yankee infield was NOT on the move--except for Martin; he caught the ball near the Ebbets Field dirt (“shoelace high,” according to baseball historian Roger Kahn). New York, up 4-2 at the time, held on for the two-run win, and the Pinstripes had captured yet another Series.
Against Luling, Montgomery had a tougher task than Martin; she was forced to dive toward the chalk which diagrams the pitching residence; she made the catch (two shoelaces high?) to end the fifth stanza.
The righthander who had the best view of Chelsea’s “now you see it, now you don’t” performance, said, “The whole team was behind me, and you could just feel it. All I had to do was throw strikes because of the talent of the other eight girls.”
Cierra wound up firing a four-hitter--all singles. She struck out a not-so-CT-like three but walked nobody. She retired 16 of the last 18 foes she faced; Luling sent 25 girls to the plate--only four over the minimum for a seven-inning game.
“It’s so exciting being here for the third straight year,” Schendel disclosed. “La Vernia, in 2006, showed us we had to work so much harder; last year, when we won district and then area, both for the first-time in school history, it felt so great, and hopefully this year will be the same.”
Emily caught two fly balls in center in the 1-2-3 Eagles’ seventh, and the Jackets recorded another first: a bidstrict trophy--they had a bye in ‘07. They will now face Devine in the second round of the state tournament. That game is 7 p.m., May 2, at Schreiner University in Kerrville.
Write down this Number: Weihs had two singles, giving her 29 hits for the year. The Jackets are 7-0 vs. Luling in softball, girls’ basketball and football in the playoffs this decade. Llano is 15-11 while the Devine Arabians are 19-5 and champions of district 28-AAA.
The Issue at hand: “We just want to keep going another round each season,” Thompson observed. “Our goal is to keep the softball program moving forward.”