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Monday, June 19, 2006 11:31 PM CDT
Pride Orange walks to state title
MOLINE -- The Mattoon Pride 16-and-under Orange avoided Sydney Greenwalt for nearly six innings then got a little revenge when she finally made her entrance Sunday.
Greenwalt, who no-hit Mattoon’s high school team in the regional final while pitching at Edwardsville this spring, issued a bases-loaded walk to Brittany Bonic to give the Pride a 3-2 victory over the Illinois Shock in the championship of the National Softball Association state tournament.
Mattoon rallied from its only deficit in five games for the win. After Mattoon mounted a comeback from 2-1 down to tie it, Greenwalt came in with one out and the bases loaded in the top of the sixth. She recorded a strikeout then ran the count full on Bonic. Bonic stayed alive with a foul tip before taking the next pitch high.
“That ended up being a pretty key play,” Pride coach Wade Bradley said.
Tori Purcell hit a solo home run in the fourth. The Shock was the only team to score against the Pride, having lost 5-2 the day before. Aubrey Frank pitched two of the shutouts, besting the Quad City Crush 5-0 in her opener Friday. Lauren Covington had three hits and two RBIs in that win.
Amanda Peck went the distance for the unbeaten Pride (17-0) in the championship, allowing five hits and striking out five, and Alicia Wittenberg was the team’s leading hitter, with two hits each in wins over the Illinois Thunder and Shock.
“Peck and Frank pitched extremely well,” Bradley said. “We earned our stripes this weekend. We’d seen a couple of good teams but nothing like this.
“But then a big key, too, was Wittenberg in the first game against Illinois Shock.”
The Effingham player had struggled both pitching and hitting this summer. But she made the most of her only appearance in the circle on Saturday, allowing three hits and striking out eight in six innings against Mattoon’s toughest challenger.
In a 1-0 victory over the Quad City Heat in the semifinals Sunday, Wittenberg doubled and scored the only run when Jenna Bradley lined a soft single to center in the fourth. Frank didn’t allow a base-runner until the fifth.
Peck’s win was her second of the tourney. She tossed a three-hitter in a 1-0 shutout of the Illinois Thunder and had three singles when the Pride defeated the Shock the first time.
The Pride was helped by having one of the deepest pitching staffs in the tourney. Greenwalt didn’t start the championship because she had been used almost exclusively by the Shock up to that point.
“That was really the biggest difference in the tournament,” Bradley said.
“Defensively, our outfield (Lindsay Ward, Bonic and Emily Sowers) made every play all weekend and then the infield defense was outstanding, especially up the middle. (Hailey) Tinsman and Bradley made some game-savers.”
Previous Pride squads have won state crowns in both the NSA and ASA (Amateur Softball Association), but this team won’t get a chance to do so. Its schedule consists entirely of NSA events, including a World Series qualifier at East Peoria that begins with two games on Friday.
Wade Bradley also coached the 16s to an NSA state title in 2000 at the same Moline complex. That tourney involved an identical five-game unbeaten run to the championship.
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