Softball: Reagan Stoudt leads St. Bede past Princeton for TRC East title

The St. Bede and Princeton softball teams hooked up Saturday at the Academy to decide the Three Rivers Conference East Division championship.

Sophomore Reagan Stoudt helped the Bruins secure the title with her arm and her bat as she pitched a complete game and blasted a home run to lift St. Bede to a 4-1 victory.

“Reagan hit her spots today and kept her poise and got out of a couple of tight spots,” St. Bede coach Shawn Sons said. “I told her to relax and clear her mind on the last at bat and she certainly did. You have to take your hat off to [Katie] Bates. She is one heck of an athlete, and she really made us grind out at-bats.

“We talked about working counts and fouling off pitches to wear her down in hopes that we would get to her. Not sure how much we wore her down but we were finally able to do enough to get the win.”

Sons said a game of that magnitude in the regular season finale will help the Bruins as the regional begins this week.

St. Bede (17-3, 10-2 TRC East), a No. 1 seed, plays the winner of No. 7 Henry-Senachwine and No. 8 Amboy in a Class 1A St. Bede Regional semifinal at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“I told the girls this is what playoff softball looks like and these are the kind of games we are going to have to win to move through the tournament,” Sons said. “I believe this game really will help us.”

The game began with the Tigresses getting the first two batters of the game on with Kelsea Klingenberg slapping a lead-off single and Hannah Muehlschlegel reaching by error, but Stoudt muscled up and struck out the next two before getting the third out on a pop out to her sister, Ryann, at first base to thwart the rally.

The two hurlers dominated the next couple innings, racking up perfect innings until Princeton’s Mckenzie Hecht led off the fourth frame with a walk.

Libby Boyles singled to move Hecht to third before Abby Peterson produced an RBI groundout to get the Tigresses on the board.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Bruins battled back when Ryann Stoudt led off with a single, and two outs later, Ella Hermes drove her in with a two-out hit to level the score at 1 after four innings.

Both teams got a runner to third in the fifth inning, but Stoudt (1 R, 3 H, 5 Ks, 1 BB) slammed the door in the top half of the frame before Bates (4 R, 5 H, 1 K, 0 BB) returned the favor and the game stayed tied at 1.

After a scoreless top of the sixth, the Bruins were able to scratch out a run on a pair of PHS miscues – the second one coming off the bat of Payge Pyszka, who fouled off several of Bates’ best pitchers before popping the ball behind second base, which may have gotten lost in the high sky, giving the Bruins a 2-1 lead.

That is when Reagan Stoudt stepped in and hammered a long, two-run opposite field home run to extend the Bruin lead to 4-1 heading to the last inning.

Stoudt’s day was not done yet as she needed to hold the lead in the seventh, and she set the Tigresses down in order, recording a strikeout to finish off the game in style.

“It was a real nose-to-nose game until we made a couple of mistakes and that ended up costing us in the end,” PHS coach Joe Bates said. “Reagan is a good pitcher and the type we will see next week, so this can’t do anything but help us. St. Bede is a good team and tough to beat here. They have a good program and I felt we played them tough today.”

Princeton (16-5, 9-3) is a No. 4 seed and opens the postseason against No. 6 Riverdale in a Class 2A Rockridge Regional semifinal at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.