21st Indiana State Softball Playoffs

2005 Class 4A Finals Preview

(6-7-2005)

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

2005 IHSAA Softball Semifinals

No. 1 Lake Central (32-0-1) vs.
No. 10 McCutcheon (22-9)

No. 2 Brownsburg (29-3)
vs. No. 4 Martinsville (26-1-1)

No. 1 LAKE CENTRAL (32-0-1) vs. No. 10 McCutcheon (22-9)

Friday night - 6-10-2005 @ 8:30 p.m. (approx.) at Carmel

CARMEL (6-10-2005) Here's a great semifinal matchup of the defending 4A champ, a three-time defending regional champ, against the team that may play the toughest schedule in the state.

McCutcheon, the top team in the Lafayette area, will never be highly rated because they will always lose some game. No one travels the state like the Mavericks do, playing Harrison and Memorial in Evansville and LC and Munster from Lake County.

McCutcheon also plays in the Hoosier Crossroads conference which includes half of the top softball schools in Indianapolis.

Among the Mavericks' nine losses are No. 1 4A Lake Central, No, 1 1A Clinton Central, No. 2 4A Brownsburg, No. 5 4A Hamilton Southeastern and No. 6 4A Munster.

LC needs to forget about the 7-0 win at McCutcheon on April 19 and they know why.

Not playing in that game was the one player who makes McCutcheon a state contender.

Shortstop Alicia Garza is the No. 1 offensive player in Lafayette and she has been for three years. Garza (33-70, .471) has been bothered by injuries this year but she'll have an entire week off before she bats against LC.

Garza had a dominant freshman year batting .412 with 23 RBIs and 13 stolen bases. She followed that up with a first-team all-state season in 2004 where she batted .518 with 44 RBIs, 10 stolen bases and 35 runs scored. Only 5-foot-1 and a star soccer player, Garza is one of the state's most difficult players to pitch to and this will be her first state finals.

The parallels between Garza and LC's Katie Mitchell (36-91, .396, 4 HRs, 14 extra base hits, 24 RBIs) are accurate and it isn't impossible that Garza, only a junior, will be a teammate of Mitchell's at Purdue in 2006.

The reason these two are state contenders is that they have the great No. 3 hitters that are feared. You MUST pitch around Mitchell and Garza. It doesn't matter how good you think you are. Folks bat third for a reason.

McCutcheon also has a division I catcher in Heather Han (30-96, .448, 17 extra base hits, 5 Hrs, 30 RBIs), who will attend Eastern Michigan. Han bats leadoff and makes it tough to keep McCutcheon off the scoreboard early.

The third member of McCutcheon's tiny trio (all under 5-5) is junior outfielder Alexis Newby (37-107, .346), a table setter, who bats second.

New blood in 2005 is 5-9 left-handed hitting first baseman Tori Collins (30-94, .319, 20 RBIs), who bats fourth, behind Garza. McCutcheon will run the bases until you throw them out. To date, no one has. The Mavericks were 50-of-50 in stolen bases before last week.

McCutcheon does not have an elite pitcher. Senior Marie Badylak (16-7, 0.81 ERA) is very strong but she has only 99 strikeouts in 155 innings. The ball gets hit into play.

In the 7-0 win by LC, the Indians scored two runs in five innings before LC got five more runs off the promising freshman Clark (6-2, 0.86 ERA, 51 strikeouts, eight walks in 56 innings) in the final two innings.

I don't see either of these pitchers stopping Lake Central but veteran coach Jim Bates (405-139, 20 years) may use them both. The one pitcher I think is feared on LC is fast baller Katie Golden (12-0, 0.16 ERA), who has 84 strikeouts in 89 innings.

Angie Funston (11-0, 0.28 ERA, 79 Ks, 75 innings) has had an amazing year for someone who did not pitch at LC in 2004. Throw in senior Brittany Gard (9-0, 0.26 ERA) and LC has 22 shutouts in 33 games. LC pitching has allowed just 15 runs all year but that will be tested with Garza in the middle of the McCutcheon lineup.

LC's key is Mitchell, who has scored 42 runs. But Alyssa Duncan (37-91, .407, 25 RBIs) has to get hits this weekend because, I believe, she bats fourth behind Mitchell. Funston (42-106, .415), may pitch and leadoff but if Golden pitches (Funston pitched against McCutcheon in April), Funston can play shortstop and anchor the defense. Junior catcher Melissa Shofroth (44-106, .415) will have a lot of pressure on her. She has never played in the state finals and neither have any of her pitchers. But neither has anyone from McCutcheon. Everybody chokes. It's just a matter of how much.

The strength of this matchup is that these teams play every year. They have no fear of each other. I'm sure McCutcheon does not feel that the 7-0 game was indicative how well the Mavericks can do against LC. But LC has won 32 games in a row and no team is more experienced, as a group.

Most softball games in the finals are decided by scores of 1-0 or 2-1. But I would be surprised if McCutcheon was LC's 23^rd shutout victim. Look for the Indians to rally from a two-run deficit and win 5-3 in a wild game.

No. 2 Brownsburg (29-3) vs. No. 1 LAKE CENTRAL (32-0-1)

Friday night - 6-10-5 7 p.m. (approx.) at Carmel

INDIANAPOLIS (6-11-2005) It's 'Judgment Day.' And with all due respect to McCutcheon and Martinsville, it would be a shame if the state's top pitcher didn't get one shot against the state's top team.

LC faced Judgment day in 2004. They faced Darcy Wood, a dominant pitcher who struck out 22 Indians and would have won had her shortstop caught a routine flyball in the final inning of the 2004 title game. But LC won 4-1 as Alyssa Duncan hit a three-run homer in the 12^th inning.

It's as if that wasn't definitive enough. Did the Indians really beat Wood or did the Center Grove shortstop give the game away? If you play the game to seek perfection, 22 strikeouts is not perfection? Was LC just lucky to win??

The true believers on LC should welcome another chance against an all-time great. A chance to win decisively against a foe that can't be questioned.

That foe is Brownsburg senior pitcher Ashley Hobbs (27-3, 0.17 ERA) who has struck out 310 and walked only 10 in 200 innings. No one in the state has those numbers. Fluke? Probably not. In 2004, Hobbs was 23-4 with an 0.22 ERA and 305 strikeouts in 198 innings.

When you strike out 600 in 400 innings, you are throwing the ball right by people. Hobbs has an Indiana state record 63 shutouts and LC knows they could be No. 64. There have been only 16 runs scored against Brownsburg all season. LC must get to the finals and they must be hungry for this challenge.

Nobody shuts out Lake Central for seven innings. This would be the Unbeatable force vs. -Immovable object Book II.

Offensively Brownsburg relies on speed and two Division I players, Hobbs and outfielder Weslie Gladfeller (39-100, .390) who are both going to the University of Evansville. Hobbs, just 5-foot-5 is also an elite hitter with a (43-97) .443 average and 36 RBIs. Second baseman Chelsea Young (40-88, .455) has 11 doubles and 29 RBIs .

Other little rabbits are 5-3 Ashley Thompson (30-95, .316) and 5-6 Elsie English (26-90, .311). They run until you throw them out because they know it only takes one or two runs for Hobbs to win.

No team has scored more than two runs against either LC or Brownsburg all season.

One oddity here is that Brownsburg fans may be a bit distracted. The Bulldogs' nationally-ranked baseball team should be playing (against Crown Point or LaPorte) in the South Bend Semistate title game in Covaleski Stadium at 8 p.m. Saturday (6-11-2005). The Brownsburg-LC girls game is set to begin at 7 p.m. But, one other note. The softball finals has moved to Ben Davis on the far west side of Indianapolis. Less than 10 miles from Brownsburg.

Here's an instant classic. The saving grace for LC might be that Hobbs does not know them and could make a mistake. It isn't known how good Brownsburg is defensively because the ball never gets hit into the field.

It won't matter. Munster's Lori Andjelich dominated the LC lineup twice and Hobbs is probably as good or better. Plus, she probably has waited for this game all her athletic life. Brownsburg's speed will force a couple of LC errors and that will be enough as the Bulldogs will win the 2004 state title by a 3-1 score.