Wendlinger leads Lady Wildcats to 5-0 shutout of North White before rains cancel TL Invite

Team (Record) / Inning	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
North White (10-4)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2
HANOVER CENTRAL (12-5)	1	0	1	0	3	0	-	5	9	1

Twin Lakes Invitational - 1st round 5-9-2003 in Monticello - sunny, 71 degrees

WP - Amanda Wendlinger (11-4) CG No. 14, 8th shutout, 12K, 0 walks
WP - Kindra Hunt (10-4), CG No. 14, 0K, 0 walks

HANOVER CENTRAL (9 singles, , HBP)
Bess Copak (HC) 2 singles, RBI
Kelly Lapota (HC) Single, RBI
Rachel Williams (HC) 2 singles, HBP

North White (2 singles)
Robin Overmeyer (NW) single
Alicia Kammerer (NW) single

MONTICELLO (5-9-2003) - It was almost noon Saturday when Hanover Central's girls, standing in the rain with their uniforms, got the word that their Saturday trip to Twin Lakes high school had come to an end.

"They're talking about going to Taco Bell," said coach Larry McMillen, who seemed to favor going straight home. "I don't know where we're going yet."

The same could be said of the Lady cats season. The Twin Lakes Tournament, usually a good a barometer for Hanover Central's Porter County Conference (PCC) championship and 2A sectional hopes, was rained out Saturday. Hanover shut out North White 5-0 Friday night but heavy rains moved in Saturday morning, less than an hour before Hanover was to take on big school powerhouse Lafayette Jefferson.

A game with state-rated small school Pioneer also was rained out as the 16-team tournament had to be canceled.

"I wanted to play them," McMillen said of Jefferson, one of the traditional Indiana softball heavy hitters. "I told them (his team) that if you beat them, you've done something because they are one of the largest schools in the state."

Hanover coasted by North White (10-4), a squad that was seriously overmatched by Wendlinger, the 5-foot-7 right-hander. The 5-0 victory came with relative ease and ran the Lady Cat right-hander's latest string of shutout innings to 16. The Vikings got only two singles and one of them could have been called an error. It was the eighth complete-game shutout of the season for Wendlinger, who ran her brief career record to 20-5.

Hanover jumped ahead 1-0 in the first inning when Rachel Williams walked and scored on a ground ball, a stolen base and a wild pitch. In the third inning, Williams was hit by a pitch and she scored again on a bunt and single by Wendlinger. In the fifth inning, run-scoring singles by Wendlinger, Bess Copak and Kelly Lapota created the final score.

North White, despite a good record, played a small school schedule and was not expected to be a factor in this tournament. The fact that the girls from, Monon, Ind. dominated PCC member LaCrosse 9-3 two days earlier speaks volumes for Hanover's chances in next weekend's PCC tournament.

So does Hanover's 11-0 victory over Boone Grove on May 7. Wendlinger struck out 13 last Thursday and added two hits. Junior Shannon Phillips broke the game open with a three-run triple inside a nine-run Hanover sixth inning.

Hanover is not ranked in the Class 2A top-10, probably due to losses to Crown Point, Lowell and Bishop Noll, who are all hovering at the .500 mark. Hanover's schedule will suffer somewhat because of the games they did not get to play in Monticello although the season-ending matchup with Lake County neighbor and dominator Lake Central (18-2-1) will give Hanover as solid a test as they can get the week before the state tournament.

One result here was that sectional foe and 2A No. 1 Andrean (18-1-1), a 3-2 loser to McCutcheon Friday, did not face Amanda Wendlinger and did not even get to watch her pitch because the HC-North White and Andrean-McCutcheon games ran simultaneously Friday night.

One of the seeds of Hanover's 2-0 victory over Andrean in the 2002 Andrean sectional was that the 59ers had never seen Amanda's sister, then-senior Beth Wendlinger, who shut them out. While the 2003 Andrean team appears to be stronger than last year's squad, the same pre-playoff scenario is in place.

CAT NOTES: Hanover did not get to play Jefferson (13-6) but, with the cancellation of the Twin Lakes Invitational, the Lady Cats may get to play McCutcheon (21-1). The Mavericks, who beat HC 3-0 last year in the Twin Lakes Invitational, have expressed an interest in playing Hanover sometime in the next two weeks. The top-ranked 3A team apparently is looking for a competitive opponent that was not a potential tournament foe and the prowess of sophomore Amanda Wendlinger (11-4, 166 strikeouts in 86 innings) made HC a likely choice.

"They approached me," said HC coach Larry McMillen. "They want to come up here and play us. They actually said they'd like to play us every year. But I don't know if we'd want to travel down there. Maybe if they could get together with Pete (Lowell coach Pete Iussig) and they could come up here and play two games."

Amanda Wendlinger had allowed just 38 base hits in 14 complete games. Bess Copak had four base hits in the games against Boone and North White. Copak, a junior shortstop, had 19 hits and 19 RBIs in her first 37 at bats (.514) before last weekend.

Sophomore first baseman Kelly Lapota had an RBI single and made a leaping catch against North White. Lapota (14 of 32) was batting .438 before last weekend. The Lady Cats, who are two-time defending PCC tournament champions, have won 103 games and lost 24 since the start of the 1999 season. That is the second best record in Lake County behind defending 3A state champion Lake Central (127-19-1) in that time period.

2003 Porter County Conference (PCC) Softball Tournament

Quarterfinals at home sites - Friday, May 16
Wheeler at HANOVER CENTRAL
BOONE GROVE at Washington Township
Morgan Township at Kouts
LaCrosse at Hebron

Semifinals (at LaCrosse) Saturday, May 17
Wheeler or HANOVER vs. BOONE or WT ( 11 a.m.)
Morgan or Kouts vs. LaCrosse or Hebron (1 p.m.)

Championship (at LaCrosse) Saturday, May 17
Wheeler, HC, Boone or WT vs.
Morgan, Kouts, LaCrosse or Hebron -- 4 p.m.

HANOVER CENTRAL (12-5, 5-0 PCC)
Head coach Larry McMillen (11th year)
2002: 24-5 2001: 28-3 2000: 16-9-1 1999: 23-2

4-3:    11-0 (6) at River Forest (6-10)
4-10    1-2 Chesterton (18-3)
4-12: 8-3 Bishop Noll (12-10)
4-12: 2-7 Bishop Noll (12-10)
4-15: 11-0 at North Newton (9-6)
4-16: 11-0 MORGAN TOWNSHIP (6-10)
4-18: 11-0 Clark (0-16)
4-19: 20-1 at HEBRON (9-7)
4-21 (Rain) at WHEELER (12-7)
4-23: 1-2 at Lowell (10-9)
4-24: 1-4 Beecher, Ill (18-4)
4-26: 9-0 LaCROSSE (4-10)
4-28: 5-0 Whiting (9-7)
4-30: (Rain) Morton
5-1:   10-4 at South Newton (6-7)
5-2: 12-0 at KOUTS (3-6)
5-3: 2-4 Crown Point (10-9)
5-5: (Rain) at Renssealer (3-15)
5-8: (6 innings) 11-0 at BOONE GROVE (3-16)

Twin Lakes Invitational (16 teams)
5-9: 5-0 North White (10-4)
5-10 (Rain) Jefferson (13-7)
5-10 (Rain) Pioneer (14-2)

5-13 (Tu) at WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP (6-10) 4:30 p.m.
5-15 (Th) at Griffith (12-10) - 4:30 p.m.

Porter County Conference (PCC) championship (at LaCrosse)
5-16 (F) Wheeler (12-7) 4:30 p.m.
5-17 (S) Boone Grove or Washington Township - 11 a.m.
5-17 (S) championship - 2 p.m

5-21 (W) Lake Central (18-2-1) 4:30 p.m.