Jackson wins 4A district title
Published 10:09 pm Thursday, May 19, 2011
MONROE — In a classic duel between two outstanding pitchers, Thursday night’s 4A District 1 softball championship game was decided by one swing of the bat — by the winning pitcher.
Jackson defeated Marysville Pilchuck 1-0 when Lindsay Robison belted a pitch from counterpart Riley Fritz ove
r the left-center field fence with one out in the top of the fourth inning. Until then, Robison and Fritz were locked in a scoreless battle.
The sound of the bat hitting the ball let everyone know that Robison got all of it.
“I saw my pitch — I saw a nice meaty pitch and I was just going to hit it as hard as I could,” Robison said. “As soon as I hit it I knew it was probably gone.”
Robison’s home run was the only mistake made by either pitcher in a game that saw good pitching backed up by good defense.
Robison pitched a complete game, giving up just two hits and striking out three. Fritz also pitched a complete game, giving up three hits and striking out six. Neither team committed an error.
“Both pitchers did a fantastic job,” Jackson coach Mike Moran said. “Our defense was stellar, Jessica Roy had an outstanding game at third base. Their defense was great. That was a good championship game.”
In a game where the storyline was pitching and defense, Robison’s one timely hit didn’t surprise her coach.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a better hitter,” Moran said. “Her focus at the plate is phenomenal. She’s the best hitter I’ve had at Jackson.”
It was the second straight year that the Timberwolves defeated the Tommies in the district championship game. A year ago it was an explosive 11-10 game decided in eight innings, quite the contrast to this year’s 1-0 result.
MP had chances to score Thursday, but always came up empty.
In the bottom of the first inning, Marysville had runners on first and second with only one out and two of the team’s most dangerous hitters coming to the plate in Fritz and Morgan Martinis. Fritz had homered twice in Tuesday’s 10-1 semifinal victory over Cascade, but this time Robison got the better of her. Fritz became one of Robison’s three strike out victims and Martinis followed that by grounding out to Robison to end the inning.
Robison didn’t try to overpower anyone, she just pitched to contact.
“I tried to get the girls to ground out and pop up,” Robison said. “I knew I had to do that to beat them because Marysville is a good hitting team.”
“I can’t say enough about Robison, she just bared down and did what she had to do,” Moran said.
Going into the bottom of the seventh inning, the scenario was simple for the Tommies — score, or the game was over. It started out promising for MP when Martinis singled to left field. Kaitlyn Wielgus came in as a courtesy runner for Martinis. In somewhat of a surprise, the next hitter Katie Buck — who has power — laid down a bunt and advanced Wielgus to second base. With only one out, all the Tomahawks needed was a base hit to tie the score.
Jessica Christensen grounded out to Robison, and in an alert play by the T’wolves defense, they caught Wielgus in a rundown between second and third and eventually threw her out at third base to end the game.
“It was kind of a fitting way to end it,” Moran said. “A great defensive play wins the game.”
In other action on Thursday, Arlington defeated Cascade 1-0 and advanced to play the third-place team from Kingco at 2 p.m. on Saturday for the right to advance to the 4A state tournament. Earlier in the day, Arlington defeated Monroe 6-0 and Cascade beat Kamiak 6-0.
At Sky River Park
Jackson 000 100 0–1 3 0
Marysville Pilchuck 000 000 0–0 2 0
Robison and Davis. R. Fritz and Christensen. WP–Robison. LP–R. Fritz. HR–Robison (J). Records–Marysville Pilchuck 19-2 overall. Jackson 17-5.
