Article by Steven Hendrixson and Photos by Heather Setzer
On Wednesday, the Lady Cubs matched up against the Newton Eagles in the Regional-Semifinal of the IESA Class 2A tournament. After being fresh off a 9-6 win against Parkview the day prior to advance to the second round of the regional tournament, the Cubs now face a one-seeded Jasper County team.
Coming into the game with a 6-9 record, the Lions are massive underdogs. But as the underdogs, the Lady Cubs will be the hungrier team; eager to prove that they are to be taken seriously with a win against this tough Newton team.
With a win today, the Lions would face Casey-Westfield for the Regional Championship this Saturday. It will be challenging, but with how they managed to come back and beat Parkview the other day after trailing by as many as 4 points in the 2nd, anything is possible.
In the 1st, Marshall’s Parker Morey would get a ground out along with a strikeout from Hannah Couch to get two early outs against Jasper County. The Eagles would end up answering back through a double on a line drive to left fielder Blakely Dashiell followed up by another double after a single on another line drive. Shortstop Kali Kerr would then secure a groundout to take the game into the 2nd.
Things would be pretty much the same in the 2nd, with neither team gaining any momentum. A Newton batter would end up flying out to center fielder Kaydance Duzan, while Kendalyn Sanders and Hannah Couch would each ground out a baseman to end the 2nd.
In the bottom of the 3rd inning, Jasper County would end up scoring two runs off of a few singles off errors and two walks. Pitcher Riley Flaurr would end up striking out a batter to end Jasper County’s run.
The bottom 4th would end up being a good defensive inning for the Cubs, where pitcher Riley Flaurr would be the star of the show, striking out three consecutive batters for a quick inning.
The Eagles would begin to surge away from the Lions in the 5th, where they would score three runs through a couple triples and walks due to several pitching errors on Marshall’s side.
Jasper County would score one more run in the 6th to seal away the game. Beating the Cubs 7-0 to advance to the regional-championship round.
Riley Flauur was the starting pitcher for Marshall, over the course of the game, she struck out six batters and walked three. Harper Downey and Parker Morey each collected one hit for Marshall.
The Lady Cubs played with grit and effort over the course of the game. They never gave up and continued to play on even when things looked grim.
The Lady Cubs end their season with a (6-10) record, winning three more games than last year and managing to advance past the first round of Regionals.
“Last year we very seldom played 7 innings before the run rule took place. This year we almost always played 7 innings including the final game on Wednesday against the number 1 ranked team in the area. One of our focuses this year was on pitching strikes. We had 1.49 walks per inning last year and only .873 this year. We also had 91 strike outs this year and only 63 last year. Our other focus of the year was on throwing and catching. Both throwing and catching improved greatly as the season progressed,” said coach Heather Setzer after the game.
The Lady Cubs have also improved their softball IQ over the course of the season, better knowing the rules and where to be on the field. They also improved their base running this year as well.
Showing great improvement all-around. Most of this squad are 6th and 7th graders, with only a handful going on to the High School level next year. This means that the team will keep the same core players to build around for next season, which looks very promising.
With more practice and experience, while also looking back on where the squad was last year compared to this year; I have no doubt that this will be a completely different team come next fall.