Published: May 19, 2008 11:53 pm         

Shakamak softball tops scrappy WRV squad in first round of sectional

Clay City — Everything to you need to know about Monday’s Class A Clay City Sectional opener in high school softball can be summed up by one fourth-inning play.

With one out and a runner at second base, Shakamak’s Kelsey Farris smashed a single between shortstop and third base. Amanda Gilbert scored, giving the Lakers a 3-0 lead at that point, but White River Valley pitcher Stephanie Fougerousse bent down to cut off the throw to the plate, spun and fired a strike to second base to nail Farris trying to take an extra base.

And while trainers went to check on WRV second baseman Tasha Baker, who was shaken up on the tag play, Fougerousse stood along the third-base line, tears streaming down her face.

It wasn’t the score that was bothering the Wolverine sophomore, it was the effect of bending down and twisting to throw. She was playing with a balky back, which severely limited White River Valley’s best offensive and defensive option, and Shakamak was on its way to a 4-0 win.

It wasn’t that the Lakers needed all that much help anyway. They’d also beaten Fougerousse and WRV during the regular season, and they have an ace pitcher of their own in senior Heather Gilbert.

Gilbert allowed just three hits Monday — one a bunt and another a blooper over first base that landed short of the outfield grass — while striking out eight. She walked three, not so mysteriously firing 12 straight pitches in the dirt against Fougerousse while displaying impeccable control the rest of the time.

(For the year, Fougerousse has walked on approximately 60 percent of her trips to the plate.)

Shakamak took the lead in the second inning after an illegal pitch was called on Fougerousse on a full count to the leadoff batter, resulting in a walk instead of a strikeout. Amanda Gilbert reached base on a fielder’s choice for the second out, stole second and came home on a single by Brandi Ashcraft.

Annie Strahla’s leadoff double and two wild pitches started that the fourth-inning rally, and Amanda Gilbert walked and stole again ahead of Farris’s hit.

White River Valley’s best chance came in the bottom of the fifth, when Baker led off with a bunt single. With two out — and Fougerousse on deck — Jenna Rollins’ smash down the third-base line was backhanded nicely by Amanda Gilbert for the third out, preventing the WRV pitcher from coming to the plate as the tying run.

“I’d like to seen if [the Lakers] would have walked her to load the bases,” said coach Ruan Fougerousse — the pitcher’s mother — afterward. “But they probably would have.”

Heather Gilbert, who also fielded her position beautifully — “I really don’t like it when those [batted balls] come back to me,” she said — added an insurance run with an RBI single in the top of the seventh.

“I think we did really good,” the winning pitcher said after the game. “Our hitting came around, and I had my defense behind me.”

“I thought we played well, and came ready to play,” said coach Paige Wolf of the Lakers. “Heather pitched really well … and Kelsey Farris really hit the ball well tonight.”

A three-hitter was no big news for Heather Gilbert, who has three no-hitters including a perfect game so far this season. “She’s a gamer,” Wolf said of her ace pitcher. “She comes through big in a big game.”

The Wolverines got two hits from Rachel Mowery and a pair of outfield assists from freshman left fielder Breanna Fox in addition to the gutty performance of their pitcher, who struck out 11 without her best fastball.

“She knew she was not going to be 100 percent … and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to pitch well enough for us to win,” said Ruan Fougerousse, who has no other pitcher. “I left it up to her [whether to play or not].”

“People at school were asking me all day, ‘Are you going to play? Are you going to play?’ ” said Stephanie Fougerousse. “I said ‘No’ all day, but when I got here I couldn’t sit.”