| ... Page stayed in the game and struck out the side in the fifth, then drove in the game's first run in a two-run sixth as Afton went on to defeat Harpursville 5-1 in the Midstate Athletic Conference softball championship game at Greenlawn Elementary School, reclaiming the title it lost to the Hornets a year ago.
"When something happens like that it fuels me to pitch harder because I was so frustrated," Page said.
"That's the determination," Bostelman said of her ace. "She was determined to get out of that inning. The aggression just came through in her."
Bostelman said she was not 100 percent sure that Page would be able to continue. Page said she had no doubt that she would stay in the game.
Stay in she did, and after Stephanie Burch and Jessie Winans led off the sixth with consecutive singles, Page fouled off a pair of two-strike pitches before driving a double to left-center field to score Burch.
Courtney Lynn followed with a sacrifice fly to score Winans and give Afton a 2-0 lead.
Harpursville pitcher Kaitlyn Hamilton had worked out of a jam in the second when Afton put two runners on with one out. Page made sure Hamilton didn't get out of this one.
"I went into the box thinking I could hit the ball no matter where she put it," said Page, who said she anticipated a couple "junk" pitches once there were two strikes. "The best you can do is try to foul them off," she said.
Page allowed three hits and struck out 10. Hamilton gave up eights hits and struck out 14. Neither walked a batter.
The teams have alternated MAC titles in the last three years, with Harpursville winning 4-2 last season behind 13 strikeouts from Hamilton. Afton won in 2003, defeating Bainbridge-Guilford.
"It's awesome," Afton lead-off hitter Brittney Sines said of reclaiming the title. "It was so hard to give it up."
Sines, a junior, was a big reason the Crimson Knights are MAC champions again, going 3-for-4 with a run scored on Tuesday.
She did not begin the year hitting leadoff and credits her success to her slap-hitting style.
"If I can get on, it just makes (my teammates) more confident," Sines said. "They expect me to get on."
Afton added three unearned runs in the seventh, in a spurt that Sines started with a two-out single.
Burch followed with a comebacker to the mound that Hamilton fielded and threw high to first base, bringing Winans to the plate.
"I tried to hurry a little too much on that," said Hamilton of her throwing error. "It slipped out of my hands."
Winans then hit a deep fly ball that Harpursville center fielder Katie Klutts dropped, allowing Sines and Burch to score.
Winans scored for a 5-0 lead when Page tripled in the ensuing at-bat.
"In two innings everything falls apart," Harpursville coach Ron Henry said. "It makes the game look worse than it really was. When the wheels come off, the wheels come off." | |
