Lady Bulldogs fall 4-2 to LaPorte at Sectional Championship game

A USA-365 special report by Mark Smith

5-24-2008

Team (Record) / Inning	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
LaPORTE (18-12)	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	4	5	2
CROWN POINT (18-11)	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	2	11	3

Friday, May 23, 2008 - 51-degrees, 4A Sectional Championship game in CHESTERTON, IN

WP - Amanda Jones (11-7) CG, 7 K, 2 walks
LP - Jackie Beilfuss (12-9) CG, 4K, 2 walks

LaPORTE (18-12)
Jessica Wallen (2B) 1-for-3, walk, 2 runs scored
Tara Buchanan (SS) 1-for-3, walk, 2 RBIs
April McCarty (LF) 1-for-4, Single, RBI
Karoline Richie (1B) 0-for-3, sac bunt
Jessica Craft (DH) 0-for-3
Sandi Downs (C) 1-for-3
Amanda Jones (P) 0-for-3
Heather Menefee (CF) 0-for-3
Jessica Craft (RF) 1-for-3, run scored

CROWN POINT (18-11)
Allison Adank (DH) 2-for-4, run scored
Amber Pierce (CF) 2-for-3, walks, double, RBI
Jessica Martinez (2B) 1-for-3
Lindsay Gurnenz (1B) 1-for-3, sac bunt
Amy Fairchild (C) 1-for-4
Jackie Beilfuss (P) 1-for-4
Kara Gulvas (3B) 1-for-3, walk, double
Jessica Palm (SS) 0-for-4
Amiee Favia (RF) 0-for-1

CHESTERTON (4A) SECTIONAL
Quarterfinals:
LaPorte 4, Valparaiso 1
Portage 7, Hobart 1
CROWN POINT 12, MERRILLVILLE 0 (5 innings)
Chesterton 11, Michigan City 0 (6 innings)
Semifinals:
LaPorte 4, Valparaiso 1
CROWN POINT 2, Chesterton 1
LaPorte 2, Portage 1
Championship:
LaPorte 4, CROWN POINT 2 (title)

Elkhart (4A) Regional
5-31-2008 at Elkhart Memorial High School

Semifinals:
LaPorte (18-12) vs. Munster (28-5)
Penn (21-8) vs. Northridge (20-5)
Championship: 6:00 p.m. (CDT)

CHESTERTON (5-23-2008) - Before Friday's Class 4A Chesterton sectional championship game, LaPorte head varsity softball coach Bob Severs, also a Slicer football coach, agreed that there is a major difference between softball and football. Football is a game of making plays while softball is a game of not making plays. Translated: Most playoff football games are decided by positive plays, while most playoff softball games are decided by errors.

"Exactly," Severs said. "A lot of people don't understand that. Here, you make fundamental plays and wait for the other team to make mistakes. That's why you bunt so much."

He said that BEFORE Friday's LaPorte-Crown Point game.

Trailing 2-0 in the top of the sixth, the Slicers used bunts to set up the tying runs and Crown Point errors to score the two go-ahead runs as LaPorte came from behind to shock Crown Point 4-2 in the Class 4A Chesterton Sectional championship game.

Two bunt singles set up LaPorte star Tara Buchanan for a game-tying two-run sixth inning single. In the top of the seventh, two two-out errors gave the Slicers the go-ahead run and their first sectional championship in 14 years.

It was a stunning end to the season for Crown Point, which had won nine of its last 10 regular season games and had scored well-played playoff victories over Chesterton and Merrillville in the eight-team single-elimination sectional.

"I just had to come through for the team," Buchanan said during an emotional celebration by the Slicers in the center of the Chesterton high infield.

"I feel bad for the seniors," said CP coach Brett Crutchfield, who watched unearned runs beat his team that left 12 runners on base in seven innings. "We had a lot of opportunities that we just couldn't capitalize on. We couldn't get the big hit."

It appeared as if Crown Point was winning most of the night even when the score was tied. The Bulldogs began the game with base hits from Amber Pierce and Allison Adank, but they could not score. In the third inning, CP got two runners on base after two outs, but Amy Fairchild popped up to the pitcher, LaPorte's Amanda Jones.

In the fifth inning, CP got hits from Adank, Pierce, Lindsey Gurnenz and Fairchild to take a 2-0 lead. But Jones struck out CP freshman Jessica Palm with the bases loaded to end that inning.

In the sixth, LaPorte's ninth place batter Jessica Craft and lead off girl Jessica Wallen both reached base on bunt singles. On Wallen's hit, Craft raced all the way to third base, which was uncovered defensively. On the first pitch to LaPorte star Tara Buchanan, Wallen stole second base uncontested. Then, CP didn't do what they wanted to do with Buchanan, the Slicers' most dominant offensive player.

"There was some sort of miscommunication," said Crutchfield, who took the loss very hard. "That's all I can say. To be totally honest, I told them that if the girl at first stole second, I wanted to walk Buchanan. Something got lost in the translation. It wasn't that I was sticking my chest out and pitching to her. I wanted to walk her and it wasn't 'Maybe this is what we should do. It was 'I want her walked'."

With the tying run at second and third, Buchanan, facing what could have been her final at-bat in high school, lined a hard single to center field tying the game 2-2. It was the first time all night you truly felt that CP would not win.

"I missed half of this year," she said, almost in tears after the game. "I let my teammates down. I had to make it up to them. I knew I owed them big time. She had two strikes on me. I just tried to get the bat on it. Everybody told me to go up there with confidence and I came through for my team."

In the seventh inning, the Slicers mounted a two-out rally that was nightmarish for CP. A ground ball to third base went off the glove of junior Kara Gulvas and Craft raced to second base as the ball caromed foul down the left field line. Wallen then hit a hard shot to the right of first baseman Martinez, that bounced off her glove into center field, scoring the go-ahead run.

"I didn't think that was an error," said Crutchfield. "That was a hard hit ball. She made a great play here last night (in the 2-1 semifinal win over host Chesterton). If she can't get that ball, it's a hit."

After Buchanan was intentionally walked, April McCarthy's only hit of the night made it 4-2.

In front of perhaps 100 loud followers from LaPorte, Jones gave up a two-out seventh inning double to Gulvas, but Palm grounded out to end CP's season.

It's a good thing there's 10 months until the next CP softball game, because this one will take time to get over. CP has won only two sectionals in the 23 years of the state tournament and they played 2 1/2 strong games. Senior center fielder Amber Pierce had two base hits and made two diving catches in center field, preventing leadoff extra base hits in the LaPorte fifth and seventh innings.

Beilfuss, who pitched every game in CP's closing streak of 11 wins in 13 games, pitched four no-hit innings before things broke down. Had the Lady Bulldogs won, she'd have been the MVP. But Beilfuss, and many of her teammates were inconsolable after the game. Since almost everybody has to lose in the state tournament you learn to embrace losing as the inevitable ending of one's high school days. But you want the better team to win and the losers to go away without any lasting scars.

There is debate whether the better team won last Friday night and CP won't forget about this game all summer. The Bulldogs return all their pitchers in 2009 along with three infielders who started during the late season winning stretch. Catcher Katrina Klingberg showed she can take over for soon-to-graduate Amy Fairchild behind the plate. They'll be good. But you can go years without winning an eight-team big school single-elimination sectional and CP was just six outs away before they, in some respects, self-destructed.

"We made a lot of progress," said Crutchfield, who completed his second full season. "As much as we wanted to win this, as the season goes; Pretty successful. We weren't where we needed to be in the middle of the season, but these guys came together as a team. My regret with the seniors is that I only had two years with them."

"We played as a team the whole way. I'm proud of the accomplishments. I'm proud of them. But we can't keep coming here and falling short."

Especially six outs short.

SECTIONAL NOTES: Senior Amiee Favia became incapacitated during the game and could not bat her final two times up. CP's right fielder had to be helped to the parking lot after the game as she could not walk. There were conflicting reports on what happened to her and her loss may have affected the outcome of the game as she could not bat with Kara Gulvas in scoring position in the fourth inning.

Amber Pierce drove in a career-high seven runs in Crown Points' 12-1 victory over Merrillville in the sectional quarterfinals on May 21, but Pierce will be remembered at Chesterton for a diving catch in right center field that robbed LaPorte's Jessica Craft of a triple leading off the fifth-inning. Pierce also raced toward the infield and dived to make a sliding catch of Amanda Jones' leadoff line drive in the seventh.

"And that's a girl who was not good enough for the all-conference team," said coach Brett Crutchfield with some disgust afterwards. We got one player (Jessica Martinez) on the all-conference team. But there was no one more deserving than (Pierce). I tried my best to get her on that team."

The season was roller-coaster for LaPorte, which won for the sixth straight game after falling to 12-11 after a 7-2 start. LaPorte had almost fallen to the .500 mark late in the year when they rebounded, winning three straight to end the year and sweeping the sectional.

"We just started picking each other up," Tara Buchanan explained. "Even though we were losing, we just began to support each other. We knew the sectional is the only thing that matters anyway."

2008 (4A) CROWN POINT (18-11)
Brett Crutchfield (2nd year) 16-14 in 2007
3-24 (W) 6-2 Hobart (12-17)
3-25 (L) 2-3 (8 innings) New Prairie (14-12)
4-2 (L) 1-7 Lake Central (25-7)
4-3 (W) 4-2 Portage (17-8)
4-6 (W) 10-0 (5 innings) Morton (5 innings)
4-7 (L) 3-4 at Munster (24-6)
4-8 (W) 13-0 (5 innings) Merrillville (3-22)
4-14 (W) 10-0 (5 innings) Michigan City
4-15 (W) 7-2 at LaPorte (18-12)
4-17 (L) 3-5 at Valparaiso
4-18 (L) 0-2 at Chesterton (16-9)
4-22 (L) 3-7 at Lake Central (25-7)
4-24 (L) 0-3 at Portage (17-9)
4-25 (L) 0-7 Griffith (19-7)
4-29 (W) 10-0 (5 innings) Merrillville (3-22)
4-30 (L) 2-9 LaPorte (18-12)
5-3 (W) 13-4 at Hamilton Southeastern (19-6)
5-3 (W) 7-2 at Zionsville (15-11)
5-5 (W) 10-0 (5 innings) at Michigan City
5-7 (W) 9-1 Valparaiso (7-11)
5-8 (W) 5-4 (9 innings) Chesterton (17-10)
5-12 (W) 5-1 Boone Grove (21-4)
5-13 (W) 1-0 Andrean (18-10)
5-15 (L) 2-5 at Lowell (20-10)
5-16 (W) 9-1 at Highland (12-12)
5-17 (W) 5-2 Hanover Central (20-7)

Chesterton (4A) Sectional
5-21 (W) 12-1 (5 inn.) MERRILLVILLE (3-22)
5-22 (W) 2-1 Chesterton (17-10)
5-23 (L) 2-4 LaPorte (18-12)