Escanaba Girls Lose Late Lead; Fall To Florida 12-3

ROXANA, Del.---Barely eleven hours passed between the end of the Escanaba Big League Girls' (age 16-18) late-night win over Canada and the start of their game against the Southeast Regional Champions from Ft. Myers, Fla., on Tuesday.

The Escanaba girls did not appear groggy at all, and got off to a great start, building a 3-1 lead and holding a one-run lead late in the game. But the Florida girls used several Escanaba errors and a bunch of timely hits to score ten unanswered runs to beat Escanaba, 12-3, at the Big League Softball World Series in Roxana, Delaware.

The loss left Escanaba with a 2-1 record, dropping the girls into third place in their pool with one game remaining. The girls have, however, qualified for the quarterfinal round on Friday.

"I told the girls before the game that it would be the little things," Escanaba Manager Andy Fields said. "When you play good teams, you've got to do the little things right, and we just made way too many errors today. And it kind of snowballed on us there. The score doesn't really reflect how close this game was if we make the plays that we're supposed to make."

Early on, the girls did make those plays. In the second inning, second baseman Claire McInerney robbed Anne Gerwitz of a base hit with with a strong defensive play up the middle. That was huge because the next three Flordia girls reached base before pitcher Katie Ross got out of trouble with a simple ground ball to end the scoring threat.

In the first inning, shortstop Taylor Gauthier, McInerney, and first baseman Becca Piron turned a sweet 6-4-3 double play after Florida's Stephanie Norris drew a leadoff walk.

A hit batsman, wild pitch, and error gave Ft. Myers a two-out run in the third inning, but Escanaba put together a three-run fourth inning to take the lead. Piron and Ross led off with hits and both rode home on a long double to left field by Taylor Segorski. McInerney's sacrifice fly to center field brought home the third run, and Escanaba was looking good.

Norris, who was otherwise pitching effectively for Ft. Myers, helped her own cause with a no-doubt-about-it solo home run to right field. It was a 3-2 game, and Escanaba had a chance in the bottom of the fifth inning to expand its lead when Piron and Ross each got two-out singles, bringing up Segorski. But this time, the Escanaba catcher popped up to end the inning.

Ft. Myers tied the game in the sixth inning when speedster Amanda Higgins put down a nice bunt that was thrown away by Escanaba third baseman Aubree Saunders. Then, Rebecca Sullivan came through with an RBI single, giving the Florida champs a 4-3 lead.

In the top of the seventh inning, things fell apart for Escanaba. Eight runs crossed the plate as nothing went right, and the Florida girls kept battling through long at-bats against Ross.

Norris had the key hit: a two-run fly ball down the right field line, making it 6-3.

Escanaba had seven hits in the game: three apiece for Piron, Ross, and Segorski in the 3-4-5 portion of the line-up. Nobody else got a hit all afternoon long until Emily Bruntjens got a lead-off single in the seventh inning after the outcome of the game was no longer in doubt.

"In reality, it's a pool play game," Fields said. "We're in the quarterfinals. We're gonna come back Thursday and we're gonna be stronger than ever. The defense just wasn't there today like it has been. We win in bunches. Every so often, we drop one, and we dropped one today. But I think we're going to come back strong on Thursday."

Escanaba will face the Chinese team on Thursday in the final pool play game before bracket play begins. Thursday's game starts at 3:00, with the broadcast set for 2:30 on WGKL-FM (105.5), WCHT-AM (600), and on-line at www.rrnsports.com.

Click the thumbnails in the ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS box above to see videos taken by Mary Gauthier, and to hear interviews and replays.