Hauser seniors Reagan Johnson, from left, Kylie Mack, Hannah Taylor and Kyra Meister raise the regional championship trophy after defeating Eastern (Pekin) Tuesday at Hauser High School in Hope.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
HOPE — For four Hauser seniors, playing in the softball semistate has become an annual tradition.
After seeing their freshman season canceled because of the COVID pandemic, Hannah Taylor, Kyra Meister, Reagan Johnson and Kylie Mack became starters as sophomores when the Jets captured a Class A regional title. They repeated last season, then won their third consecutive regional title on Tuesday — this time in 2A — to make another trip to semistate.
“I think just being seniors, it’s been a little bit more pressure,” said Johnson, who plays left field and has done some catching. “Nobody wants to go home early at all. Hopefully, we’ll go past semistate this year.”
Hauser lost to Clay City in the semistate semifinals in 2021. Last year, the Jets beat Trinity Lutheran in the semistate semifinals before falling to Tecumseh in the final at North Daviess.
The 2A semistate is at Forest Park, and Hauser (24-7) will play in Saturday’s 11 a.m. opener against Triton Central (20-5). The winner will play No. 1 North Posey (26-0) or No. 6 Cascade (24-4) in the 7 p.m. final.
“So here we go again — three semistates in a row,” Hauser coach Andy Brunner said. “We’re going to go throw down Saturday morning and see what happens.”
Meister, who plays third base, and Mack, the right fielder, have played together the longest, starting as kids at Hope Summer Playground. Johnson came along around age 12, and Taylor played with them in middle school.
Mack is back in the lineup this year after being one of the first players off the bench last season.
“I think it’s been a lot better than sitting the bench last year,” Mack said. “But I think it’s good to show the younger girls that if you keep working, maybe you can have a starting position.”
Taylor, who has played travel softball for several years, has been the star shortstop of the Jets team the past three years and is headed to play at Eastern Illinois. Meister and Mack, both of whom will attend Purdue, and Johnson, who is headed to IUPUC, do not plan to continue with softball.
“They’re huge,” Brunner said. “They’re the leaders when it comes to fun. They’re the leaders when it comes to getting down to business, and the good news is, the rest of the team, they blend in together and they work fantastically as one. They had practice last year being juniors with no seniors, and they really get the opportunity to live it up this year, and it’s huge.
“It’s not going to be the same next year without them,” he added. “They are a fun group. They are a hard-working group. Sometimes, they stress me out to absolutely no end. But amazingly enough, they always find a way to come through and get it done.”
That especially was the case in last week’s Brownstown Central Sectional final, when Hauser gave up five runs in the top of the seventh before rallying with four in the bottom of the seventh to pull out a 10-9 win against Milan. The Jets, who posted a 3-1 win against Eastern (Pekin) in Tuesday’s regional, know they need to be ready to play from the start.
“I think if we play as a team, and everybody does their job, even if they’re not on the field, if they’re just cheering in the dugout, and we all work together, we’ll be fine,” Meister said.
“We just need to keep the momentum going,” Taylor added. “I think as long as we just keep our momentum and don’t look past anybody and just play like we know how, then we’ll be fine.”
