GCHS captures regional crown

Jun. 2—GREENSBURG — Twenty-three years have passed in between regional titles for Greensburg's softball team.

The Pirates ended the drought Tuesday at home, knocking off Scottsburg 5-2.

"That is a huge accomplishment that this team just did," GCHS coach Wade Hersley said. "This is something they will never forget."

It's the deepest run in the IHSAA 3A tournament for the Pirates since they won sectional, regional and semi-state in 1998.

GCHS wasted little time in taking control of the game. Melina Wilkison led off with a triple. She scored on a sacrifice bunt from Liz Pavy to make it 1-0.

Emma Deweese drove in Pavy on a fielder's choice to make it 2-0.

The Pirates made it 3-0 in the third after Wilkison singled and scored on a double from Taylor Cooney.

They tacked on two more runs in the sixth. Carlee Adams drew a walk. Mackenzie Austin came in as a courtesy runner, advanced to second adn then third on wild pitches. Lydia Balser drew a walk, and a sac bunt from Kayla Kelso scored Austin.

Sarah Ripperger made it 5-0 when she drove in Balser with a single.

Scottsburg scored both of its runs in the seventh.

Hermione Robinson struck out two Warriors. She came into the game expecting to rely on her defense to get outs rather than trying to strike out a bunch of batters. The strategy was clearly effective.

"What a game," Hersley said. "The girls followed the game plan and came away with the win. We stayed away from the rise ball and put down bunts to manufacture runs. We knew they had a great pitcher — but we do too. Hermione threw another excellent game for us."

Hersley called it a great team win. It's just the second regional title in school history, and first since 1998. It comes after the school's fifth sectional title and first since 2007.

Up next

The Pirates (16-8) advance to Saturday's semi-state at Brown County. Winning semi-state requires winning two games to advance to the state championship.

GCHS will take on Danville (27-1). The Warriors beat Tri-West Hendricks 2-0 to win regional. It came after they beat Cardinal Ritter 3-2 in eight innings to win sectional.

Danville has some impressive stats listed on their team page at MaxPreps.com. The Warriors have .395. Senior pitcher Savannah Jones is 8-0 and has an ERA of 0.72. She has 157 strikeouts in 87 innings.

Hersley mentioned how Jones is a strikeout pitcher and how the Warriors have a team ERA of .830.

"That's pretty good," he said. "We will approach it the same way. We have to execute our hitting and bunts when we have to move runners. We will have to have another stellar defensive game behind Mione."

Game time for Saturday is listed for 1 p.m. The other semi-state game at Brown County between Northview (24-5) and Boonville (18-6) will start at 11 a.m.

The two winners will meet at 7 p.m. Saturday to play for a spot in the state championship.

Andy Scheidler may be contacted at 812-663-3111 ext. 217401 or andy.scheidler@greensburgdailynews.com.