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Almost in the bag
Redbirds 1 win away from clinching title
CONCORD — Pitcher Heather Wilson and her Triopia-Meredosia teammates should have been out of that fifth inning before disaster struck.
But a couple of fielder’s choice plays — in both cases, the wrong choice — kept the inning going, snapped the scoreless tie and finally threw open the gates to a key 6-0 victory for visiting Virginia/A-C Central that eliminated the Lady Trojans from the Western Illinois Valley Conference title chase.
Triopia (15-6, 10-3 in the WIVC) and Virginia/A-C (23-4, 13-1) meet again on Thursday in Virginia, but it looks like that will be a moot point. The Redbirds need only a victory over Brown County today (whom they defeated 14-3 earlier this spring) to mathematically wrap up the conference title.
“We haven’t clinched yet,” said VAC skipper Ty Gebhardt. “We don’t overlook anybody. We’ve got Brown County (today) and then we have to play Triopia again on Thursday. We’ve got to take care of our business against Brown County so that we won’t put pressure on ourselves on Thursday.”
Triopia skipper Gene Farmer could afford to be more pragmatic. His Lady Trojans have been fighting uphill since an earlier upset loss to Calhoun. They rolled down that hill Tuesday, sometime around the fifth inning.
“We don’t have any chance of winning the conference now,” said Farmer. “We needed to win them both (against VAC). We lost to that Calhoun team and we’ve been a step behind ever since.”
Wilson (10-4) had the Lady Trojans in fine form early in Tuesday’s game. She blew away Virginia/A-C’s hitters in the first three innings, getting eight of her nine strikeouts then. Redbirds freshman Taylor Jokisch (14-0) was just as effective, if not as dominant. But she stayed strong throughout, and wound up with a four-hit shutout, with four strikeouts and one walk.
When Virginia/A-C’s Taylor Jacobs smacked a double off Wilson, it seemed to set a new tone. Wilson’s ball suddenly looked hit-able, and her fielders were, well, fallible.
“I’ve been in that situation many times, being the second batter up,” said Jacobs, who went 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI. “I got up there and knew we had to have a hit or two, and I knew the other batters would follow me up.”
Over the last four innings, Wilson struck out only one more batter, while surrendering six of the eight hits she allowed.
“We made an adjustment,” said Gebhardt. “The first three innings, she had eight strikeouts against us, but then our girls finally got on her a little bit and started cutting their swings back and making contact, and the ball started going through the infield.”
Farmer didn’t see it that way. Wilson, he said, had suffered a minor injury early in the game, and it started to affect her pitching.
“Heather, the first time she batted, rolled her ankle,” said Farmer. “She has a very sore ankle and I could tell that she wasn’t putting everything she had into every pitch as she usually does. She wasn’t going to come out.”
Still, Farmer insisted the Redbirds’ five-run fifth inning wasn’t his pitcher’s fault. And he had a point.
Yeah, there were runners at first and second, thanks to back-to-back, one-out singles by Virginia/A-C Central’s Natalie Allen and Kate Williams.
But a botched bunt attempt led to the second out, and all Wilson did after that was induce a pair of regular ground balls to the left side of her infield, which were fielded cleanly by her third baseman and shortstop.
For whatever reason, neither fielder made the throw to first for the automatic third out. Both tried, and failed, to get force outs on the basepaths, allowing first Megan Bergerud and then Taylor Jacobs to reach base, as Allen crossed the plate to make it a 1-0 lead for the visitors.
And then, disaster. Virginia/A-C’s Brittany Parks lifted a fly ball to short left field and Triopia’s Meghan Carls got under it, but missed the catch.
Instead the ball knocked her glasses off and rolled away as two more runs scored, while Parks ran all the way to second.
Next, Amber Lucas blooped a single to short center field, bringing in two more runs and effectively putting the game out of reach, the way Jokisch was pitching.
“You can’t make the mental errors that we made in that one inning and win the ball game,” said Farmer. “We made mental errors and fielding errors, and that’s a hill you can hardly climb over.”
The Redbirds added one more run for good measure in the top of the sixth. Haley Horney led off with a triple to the center field fence, then scored on Williams’ sacrifice fly.
The Redbirds, having surpassed their school record for wins four victories ago, are closing in on the WIVC crown and beginning to look toward possibly a deep postseason run. But first things first.
“The whole bus ride over here, we were thinking about it. Conference,” said Jacobs. “But we also still have to play Brown County tomorrow. We played them way back early in the season when it was really cold, and so we have to be ready for them.”
