Henry-Senachwine softball slips past St. Bede in extra innings

HENRY – The ball skipped past St. Bede catcher Maci Kelly, and Henry-Senachwine senior Kaitlyn Anderson took off for home.

Anderson dove in safely, popped up and yelled, “Let’s go!” as car horns honked beyond the backstop.

Anderson’s run lifted the Mallards to a 3-2, eight-inning walkoff win over the Bruins in a Tri-County Conference game Tuesday.

“It definitely felt good,” Anderson said. “I was a little bit nervous. I’m not usually that fast. I’m just glad I got in there safely.”

Anderson started the eighth by smacking a towering fly ball to left-center field that appeared to have a chance at being a home run, but hit off the bottom of the fence for a double.

She moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Brynna Anderson before scoring the winning run with two outs.

“I hoped it was going out,” Kaitlyn Anderson said about her double. “I knew the people behind me would pick me up. Just getting on base was the way to start it up for my team. I knew it started a good energy, and somebody else would ride it out for me.”

The win was Henry’s second in as many days in eight innings after the Mallards (13-2, 7-2 TCC) defeated Stark County 8-7 on Monday.

“I think it’s just confidence in one another,” Kaitlyn Anderson said about Henry’s ability to pull out extra-inning wins. “Everybody does their job. We have a lot of grit on our team. We don’t really lose confidence when we’re down by a lot or if it’s a close game.

“We just stay focused, keep each other accountable for what we do, and we get it done most of the time.”

Tuesday’s game was close throughout/ St. Bede scored in the first, Henry tied it in the third, and the teams traded runs in the sixth. Henry senior Lauren Harbison and St. Bede sophomore Macy Strauch were locked in a pitchers’ duel.

Harbison threw a complete game, giving up two runs (one earned) on five hits with 14 strikeouts and one walk.

“I was hitting my spots and had spins,” Harbison said.

Harbison and the Mallards escaped two tough jams.

In the sixth, St. Bede’s Lily Bosnich hit a ball into right-center field that hit off the fielder’s glove, allowing Bosnich to race all the way home for a 2-1 lead. The Bruins proceeded to load the bases with one out before Harbison got a line out to shortstop and a strikeout to end the threat.

St. Bede’s Lily Soliman led off the seventh with a double, but Harbison fanned the next three batters.

“I had to stay calm and have confidence,” Harbison said. “I knew if I could hit my spots and I had trust in my defense behind me, it was going to be OK.”

Strauch was strong as well, as she allowed three runs on six hits while striking out four and walking one.

“We made a couple errors,” St. Bede coach Rob Ruppert said. “You can’t give good teams extra outs, and that’s what got us tonight.”

Bosnich scored both runs for St. Bede (11-7, 7-2). She singled to start the game, advanced on a sac bunt by Emma Slingsby and scored on a single by Strauch.

“We faced a tough pitcher,” Ruppert said. “We had opportunities to score. We didn’t get the ball down on bunts. We work on bunting every day in practice. We tell them to bunt good pitches. Pressure of the game, there’s a good pitcher out there, we just didn’t finish the job.”

For Henry, Harbison singled with one out in the third and scored on an errant throw following a single by Bella Williams.

In the sixth, Bynna Anderson led off with a single and later scored on a sac fly by Rachel Eckert.

“I didn’t think we played real well,” Henry coach Lori Stenstrom said. “I didn’t think we played with the confidence we’d been playing with. We did not have good pitch selection. Our timing was off.

“We finally got on base a little bit. We kept trying. We didn’t give up. It was just a lot harder tonight for some of us on our timing.”