Team (Record) / Inning	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
LOWELL (21-10)	1	0	0	2	0	0	2	5	6	0
HIGHLAND (13-13)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	5

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Nina Ioakimidis (3) meets the press. Nina was 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs. (All photos by Mark Smith)

Lowell's girls are joined by the boys from the student cheering section. (All photos by Mark Smith)

Lowell's team celebrates the the school's fourth sectional championship.

Lowell senior Katherine Allert with the sectional title trophy. (Photos by Mark Smith)

HIGHLAND (5-28-2009) The regular season is so overrated.  All of a sudden, Lowell looks like they could be a state finalist.  One thing is for sure.  Last Thursday, they looked like they are a sectional champion.  With another dominating performance by left-handed pitcher Lauren Wells, the Devils turned back host Highland 5-0 to complete a three-game sweep of the Class 4A Highland Sectional.

The win opened a playoff door for Lowell, which opened a bit wider when Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) co-champion Crown Point (24-5) was upset by Chesterton at the Merrillville Sectional later Thursday evening.  The Devils will now meet either Chesterton (14-14) or Portage (13-13), both .500 teams. both teams Lowell has previously defeated this season, in the June 6 Class 4A Merrillville Regional semifinals.  For a team with just one senior, suddenly the future is now.

"When we were at Twin Lakes, I was talking to one of the McCutcheon coaches and we were getting ready to leave," Lowell coach Pete Iussig recalled of his team's early May trip to the 16-team Twin Lakes Invitational.  "He said, 'You know, Pete. I'll tell you right now. It doesn't matter how you're doing or how we're doing. You win the sectional, it takes away everything bad about the season.' It's pretty much true."

Can Lowell realistically win the regional title and reach the state finals for the second time in three years?  It looks like they can.  The Devils outscored Morton, Lake Central and Highland by a combined score of 15-1 and Red Devil pitching shut out the opposition over the last 20 innings.  The Devils' junior-dominated lineup, featuring three left-handed hitters at the top and three right-handed power hitters in the middle, is proving very difficult to handle.

Highland could not contain Lowell's offense.  The Devils scored in the first inning on a walk by Jacki Fletcher and an RBI single by Nina Iaokimidis two outs later.

In the fourth, Wells led off with a long drive that was barely fair down the right field line.  It was Wells first home run of the season.  Iaokimidis singled and Allert drove her in with a double to the left center field fence.

Lowell scored two runs in the seventh on a bases-loaded, two-run single to center after an intentional walk to Wells, who started at first base in the post-season on Lowell's 2007 state finals team. The lefty was 4-for-8 in the sectional, pitching 14 scoreless innings.

"Players grow and they get better and develop," said Lowell's lone senior, Katherine Allert.  "I've always played with Lauren and Jacki and Nina.  "Pitchers settle down.  All pitchers are head cases, but they settle down.  They find out what pitches work and when they work.  They just use that for their advantage.  Lauren has just gotten a lot better."

Highland, which started two freshman, may get a lot better in future years.  They have an all-star coaching staff with Natalie Shadowen (Lowell) as head coach and assistants Jeanette Gray (Valparaiso) and Michelle Castillo (Griffith).  Iussig recognized as much after the game.

"This (win) isn't as much fun because two of those three coaches over there are my former assistants," he explained.  "Natalie and Michelle coached with me for five years.  It just dawned on me in the last inning.  It's bitter sweet.  Natalie played for me and came back for five years as  coach."

"I told the girls on the bus.  They (Highland) have a lot of incentives on their side tonight.  I asked them, If you were coaching against me, you'd probably want to beat me, right?
And the other girl is the toughest competitor I'd ever coached against."

"I haven't been in too many situations before where we were going into the sectional championship game as the favorite," recalled the Lowell coach.  "In fact, I think that's the first time."

This isn't the first time for Allert, one of three remaining Red Devils who played on Lowell's 2007 state finals team.

"Every team has their ups and downs," she said. "And I think they have to experience losing so they can win. You have to have losses and you have to have hard losses. That way you know what to work on and you know what to do.  Losing creates the desire to win."

"We've been up and we've been down," Allert said. "And now we're on our way back up."

SECTIONAL NOTES:  This game was played in front of a standing room only crowd at the tiny Highland softball stadium.  Both schools had student sections, largely boys, who loudly cheered on the girls under cloudy skies in 55-degree weather.

This was Lowell's fourth sectional softball title.  The Devils previously won in 1997, 2000 and 2007.  In 2007, the Devils won the regional title in South Bend before losing to eventual state champion Hamilton Southeastern in the 4A state semifinals.

What ever happened to Morgan Melloh, the girl who beat Lowell in the state semifinals in 2007?  Melloh, a left-hander who was named the Indiana player of the year in 2007, was 30-16 this season as a sophomore for Division I Fresno State (California) University with 450 strikeouts in 319 innings.

Lowell's shutout win in the sectional championship game means they have allowed just 39 total runs in 31 games.  The shutout was the 13th of the season for the pitching combination of junior Devils Lauren Wells and Jacki Fletcher.

Fletcher's older sister Nicole, who graduated in 2006 and plays at St. Xavier College, was in attendance at the game as was shortstop Megan Bolanowski's older sister Kaitlyn, who was a freshman at the University of Indianapolis and traveled with her team to the Division II World Series in Salem, Virginia.

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Revised: May 30, 2009.