After just a half inning, it seemed things might be different this time around.
The Shawano Community High School softball team crushed Clintonville in its previous meeting, winning in shutout fashion 15-0 on May 15. In the Truckers’ first at bat in Wednesday’s WIAA Division 2 regional at Shawano, they already were faring much better, taking a 1-0 lead.
However, a new day didn’t bring a different final result.
The Hawks responded with 14 unanswered runs and ended Clintonville’s season with a 14-1 win to advance and face Wittenberg-Birnamwood in a regional semifinal Thursday.
After allowing the game’s first run, Sydney Schreiber allowed only two hits for the remainder while the offense collected plenty of runs.
Samantha Huggins provided a leadoff single for Clintonville to start the game and scored one batter later when Savannah Harbath hit an RBI double. Schreiber got out of the inning without surrendering another run, and Shawano took the lead in the bottom of the first.
Allison Raddant and Courtney Ainsworth had back-to-back one-out singles for Shawano in its at bat, before Nicole Ainsworth reached on an error. All three eventually scored as Brianna Zook and Julia Beck provided RBI singles to give the Hawks a 3-1 lead heading into the second.
Shawano extended its lead to 4-1 in the second inning, when Julia Haarth had a leadoff single and scored on a Courtney Ainsworth single.
Coach Kevin Isaacson said the Hawks’ offense had somewhat of a slow start, despite having an early lead.
“We had to concentrate at the plate,” he said. “We had six popups in the first two innings and that’s not acceptable.”
Shawano concentrated a lot of runs in the third inning, which essentially brought an early end to the game. The Hawks brought 12 batters to the plate in the third and eight of them scored. Saige Henning, Raddant, Nicole Ainsworth, Zook, Beck, Wynes and Haarth all scored in the inning to give Shawano a 12-1 lead.
“When we focused and became disciplined, we started getting the hits,” Isaacson said.
Henning and Raddant scored fourth-inning runs for the Hawks, pushing their lead to 14-1 and forcing Clintonville to score at least four runs in its final at bat to prevent a mercy rule. Schreiber didn’t allow a Truckers’ rally and finished with one strikeout while issuing two walks in the game.
Raddant scored three runs and had two hits for Shawano; Zook, Nicole Ainsworth and Henning scored two runs each.
Megan Wittman pitched the loss for Clintonville.
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