BLOOMINGTON — It was a 12-round championship fight.
Edgewood senior Ally Bland and Bloomington South sophomore Rachel Johnson went toe-to-toe in their annual county softball rivalry meeting at South on Tuesday, April 7, neither one backing down when it looked like one more punch on wobbly knees could knock them out.
Watch an outfield error put the leadoff runner at second in the bottom of the 11th? Bland mowed down the next three batters on 10 pitches. It’s the kind of thing Mustangs coach Mick Hammett has come to expect from his three-year ace.
Give up a leadoff triple in the ninth? Johnson got the next three batters to pop to third and short and line out to center. Load the bases in the 10th with two outs? Get the next batter to fly to left. It’s the sort of thing South coach Meg Montgomery will be coming to expect more of from her up-and-coming ace.
After more than 170 pitches, Johnson was rewarded with the second walk-off win in three games for the Panthers as Savannah Huffman’s double sent Addy Suhr scurrying around the bases from first and sliding under the tag at home for a 2-1, 12-inning thriller.
“That was a pitcher’s duel, and we stayed locked in tonight,” Montgomery said three hours after the first pitch. “I felt like we stayed focused and our players stepped up when they needed to.”
None more so than Johnson. Both pitchers gave up six hits, with Bland striking out 19 and Johnson eight.
Johnson gave up the tying run in the sixth and went 1-2-3 in the seventh. From there, she stranded a runner at third in the eighth, ditto in the ninth, left them loaded in the 10th and had a clean 11th before working around a one-out single and a wild pitch in the 12th.
“Both pitchers I thought did a great job in the circle,” Montgomery said. “I thought defensively, we made the plays behind Rachel. Our outfield, anything you hit out there, they catch it.”
Sharing time with another freshman in the lead pitching roles, last year, Johnson went 5-4 with a 3.98 ERA, with 29 strikeouts, just 12 walks in 56⅓ innings. She doesn’t overpower batters but did a great job keeping Edgewood’s hitters off balance, getting seven infield pop ups. She also tossed first-pitch strikes to 37 of the 55 batters she faced.
“I thought Rachel pitched unbelievable,” Montgomery said. “She’s a great pitcher. A leader for us on the mound. Has matured so much from this year. She was strong last year, just to mentally go that distance, I’ve got to give a shoutout to her. I think she stayed composed. I think she stayed focused.
“Shoutout to (Lindsay) Blanton behind the plate, they worked well together.”
South finds a way again
Meanwhile, Bland (3-1) was also ripping pitches through the strike zone. She now has 48 Ks in just four games this season.
She gave up an unearned run in the third and only seemed to get stronger as the night went on, putting the Panthers down in order in the fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings.
In the 10th, South got a leadoff single from Abby Purtlebaugh before two Ks by Bland, a single by Lindsey Blanton and a wild pitch that put the potential winning run on third. But strikeout No. 16 foiled the party. Her last three strikeouts pushed the game to the 12th.
“She’s been like that last year a few times,” Hammett said. “Had a runner get on and locked in and retired the side.”
But Suhr opened the 12th dropping a fly ball between the retreating second baseman and the charging right fielder. Next pitch, Huffman drilled a sinking liner to left that got under the fielder’s glove and rolled to the wall.
She fired to shortstop Madi Bland, who made a perfect relay throw from 20 feet into the outfield grass. But Suhr slid and touched the bag a fraction of a second before Jayden Stephens could apply the tag.
“Late in the game, you’ve got to take some chances there, and Addy’s a good base runner,” Montgomery said. “It was going to take a bam-bam throw to get us.”
The Panthers poured out of the dugout and mobbed Huffman at second base. A week earlier, South topped Owen Valley in the bottom of the seventh on a pinch-hit single by Purtlebaugh.
“You talk about Addy,” Montgomery said. “I put in Abby Purtlebaugh for a couple at bats (for her) and had Addy come back in for that last at-bat and she didn’t let it affect her. Got that single. Give Savannah credit. That was one of our hardest hit balls all night to walk that off.
“Super proud of them.”
Where’s Edgewood’s offense?
That was the question for Hammett, whose team had opened the season 3-0, scoring double-digits each time out. But Johnson was the best they’ve seen so far and nobody touched her until Lindzey Rains singled and scored in the sixth.
“We didn’t have any opportunities until the sixth inning,” Hammett said. “We took advantage of the first one. Then we kept knocking on the door and we just didn’t get that key hit to plate somebody else. We were getting the bat on the ball finally then, but just not having one drop in there when we needed it.”
Johnson held Edgewood’s red-hot 3-4-5 hitters to a 0-for-15 day.
“She had our number,” Hammett said. “I think our girls, maybe a little overanxious there. Couple we didn’t make contact. I think we probably had more strikeouts the first three innings than we did the last nine.
“They’re pretty solid. But we’ve got to score more than one run there. That’s the deal.”
BLOOMINGTON SOUTH 2, EDGEWOOD 1
Edgewood (3-1) 000 | 001 | 000 | 000 — 1 | 6 | 2
Bloomington South (2-1) 001 | 000 | 000 | 001 — 2 | 6 | 1
Ally Bland and Jayden Stephens. Rachel Johnson and Lindsey Blanton. W: Johnson (2-0). L: A.Bland (3-1). 2B: A.Bland (E), Savannah Huffman (S). 3B: Addison Yearby (E).
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Rachel Johnson, Bloomington South softball outlast Edgewood in 12 innings
Reporting by Jim Gordillo, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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