EVANSVILLE — Audrey Seiler was looking forward to Tecumseh’s first game of this year’s Castle Invite all morning.
Heck, she’s had the date circled on her calendar for months.
“I’ve been ready for this the whole entire season,” the sophomore hurler said. “I was ready for this game because I knew we’d have some competition. I was just really excited.”
Audrey Seiler speaks for most — heck, maybe even all of us.
The Friday afternoon slot at this year’s Castle Invite pitted defending Class 2A state champion Tecumseh against 4A power Hamilton Southeastern, a cross-class battle headlined by the starting pitchers: Audrey Seiler and Grace Swedarsky.
The former is a sophomore star who went 18-2 with a 0.77 ERA and 240 strikeouts last season, and is drawing interest from a number of elite Division I programs. The latter is a Virginia Tech-bound star, who led the Royals to a 4A state title as a sophomore and boasts a career line of 46-12, 1.26 ERA, 746 strikeouts and a .155 average against.
They are universally regarded as two of the (if not the two) best pitchers in the state and their first-and-only showdown as high schoolers carried similar hype to the battles between Roncalli’s Keagan Rothrock (Florida) and Tri-West’s Audrey Lowry (Oklahoma).
And I am here to tell everyone that the matchup lived up to the hype, with both pitchers weaving their way in-and-out of trouble until the eighth inning when Tecumseh scratched across one in the top half, then Hamilton Southeastern waited out a rain delay and walked it off in the home half with a two-run base hit by Lilly Palmer.
Swedrasky allowed one unearned run on five hits with a walk and 17 strikeouts.
Seiler allowed two runs, one earned, on four hits, with a walk and 14 strikeouts.
Final score: 2-1.
It was exceptional.
“We knew it was a big game. These are the ones I love,” Swedarsky smiled. “I love pitching in these big games, these big moments.”
“Oh, there ain’t no doubt, Audrey’s been hyped for this game,” Tecumseh coach Gordon Wood added. “There’s been qiute a bit of publication about it, so she knows. And she knows how good Grace Swedrasky is and she wants to compete with her. And she did.”
Seiler got a first-hand look at Swedrasky, going 1-for-3 with a strikeout and an inning-ending comebacker to the pitcher with a runner in scoring position. The curveball jumped out immediately, Seiler said, praising her counterpart’s ability to work off the plate.
“But then (Swedrasky) will come back in on you,” she continued. “She got me on a back-door curve inside — I was like, that’s nasty.”
From the opposing dugout, Swedwarsky came away impressed with Seiler’s movement and ability to mix up both her pitch selection and location. “Yeah, she’s really talented,” she observed.
Beyond their excitement for the game, both pitchers were especially locked in. Palmer pointed out Swedrasky went off on her own during warmups, all in an attempt to stay focused while her teammates blared music on the portable speaker.
“The music was messing her up and she was like, ‘I need to go as far away as possible,'” Palmer explained, as Swedarsky laughed. “She was so locked in. … It was good.”
Wood stopped by to have a quick word with Seiler before the start of the fifth inning, during which the sophomore told her coach they just needed to scratch across a single run, because she had no intentions of giving up one herself.
“That was pretty much typical Audrey today. Right down to the last pitch I had confidence in her and she had confidence in herself,” the veteran coach said. “That’s just her. She’s up for those big moments, these big schools like this. We were one pitch away. That’s part of the game, how it goes.”
That one pitch — which followed a 10-minute rain delay mid-at bat — was lined down the third-base line for a two-strike walk-off winner.
“Before I went up there I closed my eyes and was visualizing a base hit, because that’s what Grace told everyone to do,” Palmer smiled. “And then I did.”
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Insider: Grace Swedarsky, Audrey Seiler match wits in eight-inning thriller
Reporting by Brian Haenchen, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
