Still the One
Andy Marso
Monday, May 4, 2009
OVERLAND PARK — The Emporia State softball team took the long way this year, but the final destination was the same: an MIAA championship.
Hornets senior Megan Dennis struck out Nebraska-Omaha’s Lindsey Slocum to seal a 5-3 comeback win and Emporia State’s sixth straight MIAA title Sunday.
It was hard to imagine a more appropriate ending. The Hornets were the tournament’s Comeback Kids after fighting through the losers’ bracket with five straight wins. And Dennis was the driving force, pitching in all five wins without allowing an earned run until her final inning of work.
“She’s a fighter,” Emporia State coach Kristi Bredbenner said. “She never wants to fail and she’s pretty hard on herself. I think all that attitude has finally paid off for her.”
Dennis was the winning pitcher in two of the Hornets’ Saturday games and got the save in the other. She went the distance in a 5-1 win against Nebraska-Omaha in the opening game of Sunday’s championship doubleheader and then was called on to relieve with the Hornets trailing 2-0 in the third inning of the second game.
Dennis kept it close until sophomore shortstop Abby Hughes could erase the deficit almost singlehandedly. First she hit a solo homer in the bottom of the third, running her team-leading season total to 12. Then she came up in the fifth with runners at second and third and the stars seemed to have aligned for the Hornets. Hughes was their hottest hitter, having also gone 3-for-4 in the day’s earlier game, and was full of confidence.
“I love when runners are in scoring position, it’s just like my heaven,” Hughes said. “I tried to stay composed, worked my routine at the plate, looked for a good pitch and did my best.”
Hughes, who hit a team-high .476 in the tournament, knocked a two-run single past a diving second baseman to give the Hornets a 3-2 lead. They added insurance runs in the sixth on an RBI double by Jenna Potter and an RBI single by Linda Ketter.
The insurance turned out to be useful, as Nebraska-Omaha’s Julia Krejci hit a pinch-hit home run with the Mavericks down to their last out. Two more singles put the tying run on base, but Dennis came up big in the big moment, just as she’d done all tournament. The slow change-up she used to freeze Slocum for the winning out was a thing of beauty.
While Dennis and Hughes were the ringleaders Sunday, there were heroes up and down Emporia State’s roster throughout the tourney. Jennifer Heerey out-dueled MIAA Pitcher of the Year Megan Leonard in a 2-0 upset of top-seeded Central Missouri on Saturday. Abby Smith drilled a double that scored the only runs in that game.
Second baseman Angela Mahan had a .471 batting average in the first two days of the tourney and also hit two homers, which matched her total from the entire regular season. Potter ended an 0-for-13 streak Saturday against Fort Hays and then hit .400 during the five-game tournament winning streak.
Opposing teams pitched around Miranda Campbell the whole tournament, and she patiently took one maddening walk after another. Even without seeing many strikes she managed to hit two home runs, including the game-winner against Missouri Western Saturday night, as Emporia State got revenge for its only tournament loss.
When Campbell went through some throwing woes at third base that gave Nebraska-Omaha an unearned run in Sunday’s opener, Jill Peters got it right back with a home run in the following inning.
All tournament long, the Hornets picked each other up.
“Not just this tournament, but overall this season we all kind of had to pull together in a different way than last year,” said Dennis, who got unassisted double plays from Hughes and Mahan and several impressive stretches from Jennifer Dace at first base. “We all needed each other to get the wins and now I think we’re all peaking at the right time.”
That’s perfect, because winning the MIAA gave the Hornets an automatic berth in next weekend’s NCAA South Central Regional tournament. Playing in the NCAA tournament has become almost routine for the Hornets, but it was far from a given this year.
The stakes for this MIAA tournament were high, and the gritty way the Hornets won it made it a little different than the last five titles.
“The fact that these girls came back gives them a chance to really feel like they have a season they’re really working for,” Bredbenner said. “We’re a team that doesn’t give up easily and I think that showed today. Taking that type of momentum into the postseason is huge.”
Sunday at MIAA tournament in Overland Park
Game One
Emporia State 5, Nebraska-Omaha 1
Emporia State 000 031 1 — 5 9 2
Nebraska-Omaha 000 010 0 — 1 5 0
WP — Dennis. LP — Negrete.
E — ESU: Campbell. DP — ESU 2. LOB — ESU 6, UNO 4. 2B — ESU: Campbell, Ketter, Bader 2. HR — ESU: Peters. SH — ESU: Campbell, Potter, Ketter. SB — ESU: Hughes; SBU: Bergley.
Game Two
Emporia State 5, Nebraska-Omaha 3
Nebraska-Omaha 020 000 1 — 3 8 3
Emporia State 001 022 X — 5 6 0
WP — Dennis. LP — Haley.
E — SBU: Yates, Treigh, Lynch 2. LOB — UNO 6, ESU 5. 2B — ESU: Potter. HR — UNO: Meneely, Krejci; ESU: Hughes. HBP — UNO: Yates,Treigh. SH — UNO: Hukill; ESU: Smith, Peters. SB — ESU: Hughes.