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Northwest Indiana's Magnificent-7, Week-6 |
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A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith |
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Northwest Indiana's Magnificent-7, Week-6 |
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A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith |
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| Local teams are booking rooms in Monticello for the 16-team Twin Lakes Invitational this weekend. Its an endurance test as the winning team needs to take five games including Saturday's 6 p.m. (CDT) championship game. (Photo by Mark Smith) |
CROWN
POINT
(5-05-2016) The weather caused some disappointments last week as LaPorte and
Crown Point lost a game to the weather that they won't get back.
The weather didn't warm up as had been hoped, but with just three weeks to play,
teams are going to be forced to squeeze in a lot of make-up contests or just
forget about them.
Crown Point (13-0) was elevated to the No.1 ranking in the nation by Max preps.
Now I know that none of you are going to ask why The Indiana Girls Softball
Association has Penn (13-1) as the state's No.1 team.
I'm glad you aren't asking how Crown Point can be No.1 in the nation and not No.
1 in their own state. Thanks again for not asking me that question.
Penn's only loss is 2-0, a 2-hit shutout against Castle (14-3) and sophomore
left-hander Sdney Wilson (12-1, 0.77 ERA).
Penn has three Division I college recruits led by junior right-hander Danielle
Watson (10-0, 0.12 ERA, 9 shutouts), who did not pitch against Castle, but who almost certainly will pitch when Penn travels to Crown Point
in a game that has been re-scheduled from this Thursday to next Monday, May 9.
Munster stopped the undefeated run of Kankakee Valley with a 4-3 win last week
in Northwest Crossroads Conference (NCC) play. Munster doesn't have a great record,
but they can argue they should be in this poll with victories over Boone Grove
(12-1), Kankakee Valley (11-1) and Hanover Central (17-2).
Lots of things cease to matter next week because the draw for the Indiana state
tournament will be public Thursday morning, May 12.
CROWN POINT: Crown Point topped Bremen (14-3) and Edwardsburg, Michigan (15-2) last Saturday at the rain-shortened Lakeshore Invitational in Stevensville, Michigan. Both senior Miranda Elish (6-0, 0.19 ERA, 83Ks, 3 walks) and junior Alexis Holloway (6-0. 0.36 ERA, 73Ks, 9 walks) picked up their sixth win of the season. Holloway then gave up nine hits, but no runs in a 3-0 shutout of Lake Central, a win that gives CP a strong grip on the Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) championship. There have been only five runs scored against Crown Point all season, but Penn's Danielle Watson has allowed only one earned run in 10 starts. That makes it all the more interesting when Penn (13-1) plays at Crown Point (13-0) in a contest rescheduled from Thursday, May 5 to Monday, May 9 at 5 p.m. CP has 15 games left and that's a lot starting the month of May. The Bulldogs travel to Illinois power Downers Grove South (13-2) Saturday for another test.
St. JOHN: Lake Central rolled over Bishop Noll 11-0 on a no-hitter by Madison Tucker. LC has lost three DAC games, so they won't win the league title. But the LC girls are still batting .321 as a team led by Alex Hickey (19 of 44, .432, 3 HRs, 15 RBIs). Madison Tucker (4-2, 1.74 ERA) and Julia Shassburger (5-2, 3.67 ERA) will both need to be ready when the Indians play at LaPorte (15-3) on May 11 and at 4A No. 1 Penn (13-1) on May 13. But LC, which lost 3-0 to Crown Point Monday, only had 10 games scheduled in May, so they certainly won't be road weary come playoff time.
CHESTERTON: Chesterton rode the roller coaster last week with a second win over rival Lake Central (15-4) prior to a 15-1 loss to undefeated Crown Point (12-0). Lauren Anderson struck out 13 against LC and Shelby Grimm tripled and scored to start the game on the road. I do not know the last time (if ever) that Chesterton won two regular season games from Lake Central. The Trojans have lost to Mishawaka (9-4) and to Crown Point twice. That's probably far better than they expected at the start of the year. It bears repeating that Chesterton is in 4A Sectional 2. Crown Point (12-0) and Lake Central (14-5) are in 4A Sectional 1, while LaPorte (15-3) and Penn (13-1) are in 4A Sectional 3. The top four teams in the DAC are the top four teams in the area. That's no surprise.
LaPORTE: LaPorte topped Lowell 3-2 Saturday and then lost
to Rochester (10-3) in eight innings. But other than some low-rent weather, the
Slicers probably have no complaints about the month of April. Junior pitcher
Riley Galloway (11 of 33, .333) struck out a season-high 17 batters against
Lowell. Galloway (12-3, 0.88 ERA) had 168 strikeouts (just 29 hits and 13 walks)
in her first 68 innings.
The Slicers have wins over Lake Central (15-4) and Michigan's state-ranked
(Stevensville) Lakeshore (13-5) and as of May 1, three batters: senior Kassidy
Rosembam (25 of 53, .472), junior Rachel Noll (17 of 44, .415) and Galloway (21
of 51, .412) are still hitting over .400. I still have them a half step behind
Chesterton largely due to Chesterton's 2-game sweep of Lake Central. LaPorte has
to get ready for their one-game sectional season against Penn (13-1) in Class 4A
Sectional 3 later this month. That's all that matters entering the final three
weeks.
5. (3A) Hanover Central
(16-2)
2015 (22-11), 2014 (29-5), 2013 (18-10)
CEDAR LAKE: Hanover has almost coasted to 16 wins. A lot of their victories are coming easily. 9-0 and 12-2 over Marquette. 9-3 over Wheeler. 10-0 over North Newton. It will be good for the Lady Cats to get to Monticello this weekend for the Twin Lakes Invitational. The only losses are to good teams: Beecher, Illinois (20-1) and Munster (9-6). HC's core of junior players Alexis Mokos (24 of 52, .462), Alyssa Gil (21 of 57, .368), Sophia Barbosa (15 of 45, .333), Skyler Barnett (34 of 64, .531), Dakota Ward (15 of 45, .333), Abby Thompson (13 of 47, .277) and Marlee Hanlon (18 of 42, .429) has helped keep the 19-game team batting average at .355. Hanlon (13-1, 1.79 ERA) has given up 73 hits in 86 innings, but just 16 walks. HC faces Munster (9-6) Friday night in the opening game of the 16-team Twin Lakes Invitational. After this weekend, HC doesn't have a lot of games left. Here's another team that might call big neighbor Crown Point (13-0) to see if they can challenge them to a late-season game.
WHEATFIELD:
KV finally lost a game, 3-1 to Munster. But the Kougars can earn a rematch at
Twin Lakes this Saturday. Emma Maple (9-1, 2.60 ERA) also has a batting average
of (18 of 37) .486.
KV's trio of freshmen Madeline Swart (19 of 40, .475), Emma Sark (14 of 39,
.355) and Kaylee Barrett (10 of 24, .417) are big batting help to upperclassmen
like junior MacKenzie Adams (20 of 43, .465). It's hard to keep KV ahead of
Munster (9-6) but that may change this weekend when KV sees Pioneer (10-3) and
Benton Central (10-5) as the Kougars make their debut at the Twin Lakes
Invitational. If KV survives pool play, they could see Munster or Hanover
Central (15-2) in the finals. You can slide or soar very quickly in pool play in
Monticello. It will be very interesting to see how KV does.
PORTER TOWNSHIP: Boone won 17-5 over Morgan Township, 16-5 over Hobart and 11-0 Washington Township last week to stay in the lead of the Porter County Conference (PCC). Senior Sarah Brown (23 of 44, .523) has scored 24 runs in 12 games. Junior Taylor Stevens (20 of 36, .556) has driven in 24 runs. Pitcher Amanda Hawrot (8-1 0.43 ERA) has 69 strikeouts and eight walks in 49 innings. Here's where the schedule hurts Boone. There aren't a lot of games left and the PCC tournament will not be a big challenge this year. They need to call Crown Point or Lake Central and challenge them to a matchup. It might not go well for them, but they need to see top pitching in the final days before the post-season.
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Revised: May 05, 2016.
