Lady Frogs Fall in Regional;
“I Am Disappointed for the Girls,” said Forshee
by Dennis Gonzales & The Pratt Tribune
May 15, 2008
One inning was catastrophic for the Pratt High School varsity softball team in the 2008 KSHSAA 4A Pratt Regional championship game Tuesday at Green Sports Complex. Colby used a seven-run fourth inning to snap an 0-0 tie and go on to a 9-3 victory.
The win sends the 20-1 Eagles to the 2008 KSHSAA 4A state
championship in Salina May 23-24.
“I think it is a whole different game,” said PHS head coach Mike
Forshee if the Colby fourth played out a little differently.
His Lady Greenbacks didn’t capitalize on overanxious Colby base running during the inning; therefore, the Eagles escaped two rundowns. "Those things just happen," said Forshee. "It is nobody's fault. It is just the way the breaks go sometimes."
The first third of the game followed the expected script between the regional's No. 1 and No. 2 seeds. Pratt starter Brooke Blankenship and Colby's Logan Wark did not allow a run the first three innings. The Eagle and Lady Greenback offensives weren’t handcuffed. Colby had one out and the bases loaded in the first. Blankenship struck out Tara Powell then forced Kiri Kendrick to ground out, ending the threat.
In the top of the third, Haley Pevoteaux and Ashton Neumann singles along with a walk worked out by Rebecca Slief, packed the bases with two outs. But, Wark enticed Heather Goertz to ground back to the mound, leaving the bases packed.
The bottom of the fourth was the Lady Greenbacks’ downfall. Two Eagle base hits and an escape from a PHS run down loaded the bases for Lindsay Frahm. Frahm lifted a sinking line drive up and over the head of Slief, PHS’s third baseman, which snuck inside the foul line. Her double scored Kendrick and Chanelle Staats, giving Colby a 2-0 lead.
Cahlyn Wark’s RBI single and three unearned runs followed. The Eagles retained their 7-0 advantage until the sixth when they pushed across two more runs on a Powell single and a PHS error, extending their lead to 9-0. Wark lost her shut out in the seventh.
Jordi Garrett’s infield single and Pevoteaux’s single past third brought up Kelsy Roberts, whom was pinch hitting for Samantha Rojas. Roberts drilled the ball into left. Utilizing her speed, she raced around the bases and arrived home with a three-run inside-the-park home run.
Wark’s complete-game victory was built on five hits, three strikeouts, and two walks. Blankenship gave up 11 hits and struck out three. “Brooke threw another good game and we had those chances, but the breaks didn’t go our way a couple times,” said Forshee. “Games like this that happens,” he added. “It takes nothing away from what we’ve done. We had a great season.” PHS finished 2008 14-8.
“I am disappointed for the girls,” said Forshee. “I wish I could’ve done more to get them one step closer. I am disappointed for them. Not in how they played, but we just came up a little short. I wanted that (states) for them. I wish they could’ve experienced that.”
PHS loses one player – Goertz – to graduation.
Competing at the 2008 state championships was a goal of the Lady Greenbacks, but there was more.“I expect that,” said Forshee of his teams reaching the state championships. “It doesn’t matter who the team is. It has to be something you always strive for. To get to that (states). The breaks could have gone our way today and we would have been there. If you keep playing and playing well and get better, who knows sometimes what happens.”
Lady Frogs Fall in Regional;
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