In a contest with plenty of twists and turns, Trinity Christian had the winning run on first and the meat of the order coming up against South O’Brien. The Wolverines called on a relief pitcher who had actually started the game and she slammed the door on Trinity to preserve a 14-12 victory in a Class 1A Region 7 opening round game played July 7 at Hull.
“What a nerve racking game!” exclaimed winning coach Heather Struve. “We started off great with an 8-1 lead through 1-1/2 innings, but Trinity put five runs on the board in the bottom of the second to make it 8-6 in our favor. In the third we drove in four more runs to go up 12-6. Trinity had a big sixth inning to cut our lead to 13-12. Tawni Wulf came in to relieve Alli Griebel with two outs in the sixth. She got us out of that inning on the first batter she faced. We scored a run in the top of the seventh to go up 14-12.”
Struve went on to describe the late game drama. “In the bottom of the seventh Wulf walked the first batter, the second batter got on base on an error and the third batter walked to load the bases,” explained the coach. “Wulf had a 2-0 count on Trinity’s Madalyn Vis, who is their third batter in the lineup and had hit a solo home run earlier in the game. With the count 2-0 I switched back to Griebel and she got Vis to a full count and then struck her out looking. The cleanup hitter for Trinity also went to a full count, but Griebel once again struck her out on an outside pitch looking. With two outs our infield and outfield could both move back to their regular positions in the field and hopefully get an out at any base. But that wasn’t needed, as Griebel came up big and got the last out on her own with the Trinity batter going down swinging. That was probably the most amazing finish to a game that I’ve ever seen! Griebel was locked in. She played like a senior when she went back into that game tonight instead of the freshman that she is.”
In all Griebel pitched 6-2/3 innings, allowing 12 runs (11 earned) on 14 hits. She struck out a total of seven Tiger batters, walked only one and hit two. Wulf walked the two batters during her brief stint in the sixth and seventh innings but yielded no hits. South O’Brien had two errors in the game.
Offense was definitely needed in this game and the hitters came through. “Our bats were hot, especially off of Trinity’s first two pitchers,” noted Struve. “We pounded out 15 hits, a game high for the season! I was so happy to see us show up to play and fight until the last out.” Reese Farquhar, Abby Woodall and BreLee Rasmussen each had three hits and Griebel had two. Rasmussen totaled three RBI’s while Woodall, Farquhar and Wulf each drove in two. Woodall scored three runs.
“Fantastic post season win!” said Struve. “One to remember for sure!”
S. O’Brien
3 5 4 0 1 0 1 – 14
Trinity
1 5 0 1 0 5 0 – 12