Softball: Ottawa closes out regular season with 6-5 loss to Normal Community

With the large-school softball postseason starting next week, Ottawa’s game against Normal Community on Thursday afternoon was a great opportunity for both squads one final regular-season tune-up against a solid opponent.

The Pirates jumped out to a three-run lead in the opening two innings, but the Ironmen pushed across four runs in the fifth before each squad tallied once in the sixth in the visitors’ 6-5 victory at King Field on senior day.

Ottawa, which fell to 20-8 on the season, opens at the Class 3A Morris Regional on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. against Plano.

“I really think this was one of the better games we’ve played this season,” Ottawa coach Adam Lewis said. “The only thing I saw that we struggled with was in the fifth inning when they were able to get a couple runners on with two outs, we started playing tight. I think sometimes we take advantage how good (pitcher) McKenzie (Oslanzi) really is and when opponents put some runners on, we put too much pressure on ourselves defensively. We swung the bats pretty well and did all the little things with baserunning and bunting that we needed to.

“Overall though I think we came out of today with more positives than negatives and that’s what we were wanting to see today heading into next week’s regional.”

Ottawa scored twice in the first frame as lead-off hitter Hailey Larsen tripled to the fence in right ahead of a bunt single by Ryleigh Stehl. Larsen then scored on a ground out by Oslanzi and Stehl touched home plate on a sacrifice fly by Zoe Harris. The hosts added a run in the second as Brynne Sember drew a lead-off walk, went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Makenna Chiaventone, to third on a wild pitch and scored on a double steal after Grace Carroll walked.

After holding the Ironmen scoreless through 4 2/3, Oslanzi (6 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 9 K) allowed six consecutive singles which translated into four runs, then in the fifth a dropped-third strike eventually came around to give Normal Community a 5-3 lead.

“We just made one more play than they did today,” said Ironmen coach Steve Hassel, his team improving to 19-9. “Ottawa is such a well-coached team; they are 1-9 in the order a hard team to get outs against and they always have fantastic pitching. This was a perfect game against a really solid team for us with the postseason starting next week.

“We were pretty sloppy in the opening three innings and didn’t handle a couple of defensive plays how we should have. Their pitcher was really good, but I thought we did an excellent job of grinding out at-bats and our bottom of the order got things started for us a couple innings.”

Ottawa closed the gap to one run in its half of the sixth, beginning with a walk to Lily Nanouski, who was replaced by pinch-runner Gianna Leigh. Sember followed with a line-drive shot to the gap in left-center for an RBI double, but was thrown out trying to advance to third.

In the Pirates’ seventh, Stehl blooped a single to right with one out, but was eventually stranded at third.

The three Ottawa seniors — Chiaventone, Harris and Molly Buscher — were honored prior to the contest.

“Those three seniors are not only solid players on the field but have been really great and solid leaders as well.” Lewis said. “We have had every member of this team start numerous games this season, and especially the last couple weeks, have done a ton of rotating with who is hitting and who is not. Not once have we had any problem with attitudes or pouting, they’ve all done nothing but pick each other up and cheer for each other. I feel like that comes from the leadership of Makenna, Zoe and Molly.

“I’m proud of this team, but especially those three young ladies.”