Paige McDaniel makes it to first during Hauser’s regional victory over Indianapolis Lutheran Tuesday May 31, 2022 at Hauser.
The Republic file photo
When Hauser plays Trinity Lutheran in Saturday’s North Daviess Semistate semifinals, the Class 4A No. 2 Jets will be playing a second consecutive opponent that they had beaten 10-0 during the regular softball season.
Hauser routed Indianapolis Lutheran 17-2 in five innings in Tuesday’s regional rematch to reach the semistate and now will look for another big win against Trinity. But this will be a different Cougars team than the one the Jets faced in the regular-season.
“They handled us pretty strongly,” Trinity coach Bob Tabeling said. “At that point, we had taken a couple losses, and that Hauser loss was another tough one. But fortunately as we finished out the season, we got everybody healthy. Since we started sectional, we’ve had everybody back. That was the first time we’ve been able to put everybody in our lineup into the game. We’ve played the last three games with a healthy crew, so that’s kind of nice.”
Class A No. 2 Hauser (23-4-1) and the Cougars (14-9) will play the first semifinal at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The winner will meet No. 1 Tecumseh (26-5) or co-No. 7 Clay City (24-4) in the 7 p.m. semistate final.
“Kind of like with Indy Lutheran, we beat them convincingly earlier in the year, but you can’t overlook anybody,” Hauser coach Andy Brunner said. “Trinity has a good program. Obviously, they’ve grown, and they’re doing some things right. I anticipate us having our hands full Saturday morning and Saturday evening.”
A big key for Trinity’s tournaround has been the return of senior pitcher Kamzi Gross. Gross, who had been the Cougars’ main pitcher since her freshman year, broke the thumb on her left hand in a car accident a couple weeks before the season begin.
Freshman Grace Lance (5-4, 4.63 ERA) handled the pitching duties for Trinity the first half of the season before Gross (6-1, 3.04 ERA) began working her way back into the starting spot.
“Kamzi is going to be pitching, and she’s been throwing extremely well, so obviously, we need that to continue,” Tabeling said. “Our defense, we can’t give them eight, nine 10 runs in a game. We can’t give them extra outs. That’s how we beat West Washington. We didn’t have any spectacular plays, but we didn’t make mistakes.”
Junior shortstop Bailey Tabeling leads the Cougars with a .540 batting average, while Gross is hitting .423 with four home runs and 15 RBIs. Freshman third baseman/designated player Madison Keith (.417, 14 RBIs) is back in the lineup after missing several games with shoulder injury.
“From an offensive standpoint, we use our speed when the situation presents itself, and that needs to continue,” Bob Tabeling said. “If we get somebody to third, we’ve done a really nice job of doing what it takes to get that person in.”
Hauser sophomore pitcher Paige McDaniel is 15-3 with a 2.09 ERA. Junior Kaydence Gates is 4-0 with an 0.30 ERA.
The first eight batters in the Jets lineup are hitting at least .400. Junior catcher Reagan Johnson (.588, one HR, 23 RBIs) leads the way, followed by freshman center fielder Lucie Asher (.576, one HR, 22 RBIs), junior shortstop Hannah Taylor (.488, seven HR, 35 RBIs), junior third baseman Kyra Meister (.470, 21 RBIs), freshman second baseman Izzy Brunner (.456, 29 RBIs), freshman first baseman Maley Jordan (.446, 13 RBIs), freshman left fielder Haylin Campbell (.426, 13 RBIs) and sophomore right fielder Kenze Bostic (.403m two HR, 27 RBIs).
“They have such a strong hitting team,” Bob Tabeling said. “We knew if we were going to advance through sectional and regional, we were going to have to have some pitching and defense, and fortunately, we’ve been able to do that.”
Trinity beat co-No. 7 West Washington 5-2 in Tuesday’s regional, avenging a 16-1 regular-season loss to the Senators. So the Jets know they can’t take the Cougars lightly.
“We’ve talked about that for the past few weeks,” Andy Brunner said. “This tournament, one bad day, one bad inning, we go home.”
“I know we can do it,” Taylor added. “We’re a good group of girls, and I have confidence in them. We just have to play our best and our game that we know how to play, and we’ll be good.”
