WIAA DIV. 5 SOFTBALL - Pirates give Lancers a late scare, but Immanuel survives, 8-7

WIAA DIV. 5 SOFTBALL

The Gilman Pirates tried, and made things quite interesting with a three-run seventh inning, but they weren’t able to fully erase an early 7-2 deficit and saw their season end May 22 with an 8-7 WIAA Division 5 softball regional semifinal loss at Eau Claire Immanuel Lutheran.

The loss was Gilman’s third in the past calendar year to the Lancers, including the second close loss in a row in this round of the post-season tournament. The Lancers rolled over Gilman 14-3 in an April 22 regular season game as well.

The Pirates went into this game, however, fully expecting to have a better showing and they did that, despite finishing their year at 13-8.

“We knew we would hit (Lancer pitcher Hannah Kazemba) and we did,” Gilman head coach Brian Phelps said. “We put the ball in play pretty well. We just made a few too many mental mistakes defensively that we couldn’t make at those times. These were two pretty evenly-matched teams. We certainly had a much better showing than we did in the first game there this year.”

The difference in the game wound up being the two three-run innings Immanuel Lutheran put together in the first and third. The third-seeded Lancers took the lead for good with their three-run first that made it 3-1. Their three-run third made it 6-2 and they tacked on another in the fourth before the sixth-seeded Pirates made their late run.

Single runs in the fifth and sixth innings cut Immanuel’s lead to 8-4 and then Gilman really created some tension for the home team in the seventh.

Raygen Soper and Kenlyn Kroeplin drew walks to start the last-ditch rally. Danielle Mann grounded one to shortstop Katie Kloke, whose throw to third for a potential forceout was mishandled, allowing Soper to score. RBI singles by Abby Chaplinski and Ava Warner made it a onerun game with still nobody out.

Chaplinski and Warner were in scoring position at second and third after Jayda Rosemeyer’s groundout to short, but Kazemba made big pitches when she had to, getting a strikeout and a flyout to short right by Gilman’s number nine-hitter Allison Olynick, who had tripled earlier in the game, to keep the tying and go-ahead runs from scoring.

Kroeplin, Warner and Mann had multihit games for Gilman. Mann pitched all six innings, striking out three, walking one and allowed 10 hits while constantly being in and around the strike zone.

Soper reached on a first-inning error and scored on a base hit by Mann to give Gilman its only lead of the game, but it was short-lived. Kazemba tripled and scored on a Kloke double and a Cheyenne Wales RBI single highlighted a three-run inning. The Lancers got RBI singles from Gabi Radichel and Kenzie Koenig to key their three-run third.

“In their big innings, we made a couple of key mistakes that cost us,” Phelps said. “But they put the ball in play hard too. We just weren’t about to dig all the way out from those innings.”

The Pirates’ season ended in the regional semifinal round for the third straight season. Mann, Warner and Rosemeyer leave as graduating seniors after multiple successful varsity softball seasons for all three, but the Pirates also should return a solid core of juniors from this year’s squad along with younger players who got valuable experience as well during a year that included a second-place finish in the Eastern Cloverbelt Conference.

“It was a good solid winning season,” Phelps said. “The kids worked hard, they played well, they have some great personalities and they are a pleasure to work with.”

Immanuel Lutheran finished 13-6 after falling 4-0 to second-seeded Thorp in Thursday’s regional final.