This story is sponsored by: Victory Apparel
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
AUBURNDALE – The Auburndale softball team stands a win away from making program history.
Embarked in a pitchers’ duel between Auburndale’s Morgan Griesbach and Stratford’s Laney Pankratz, the Eagles were able to scratch out a five-run fifth inning and earned a 5-0 shut out to win a WIAA Division 4 sectional semifinal on Tuesday at Auburndale High School.
Auburndale (20-3) moves on to a sectional final against upset-minded Eleva-Strum (11-9) on Thursday at Blair-Taylor High School. Eleva-Strum, the No. 5 seed in the top half of the D-4 Sectional 3 bracket, won its third-straight road game of the playoffs with a 2-0 shutout of No. 3 seed Blair-Taylor on Tuesday. The winner goes to the state tournament next week in Madison, a spot no Auburndale softball team has earned before.
“We’ve played teams in the Dairyland (Conference) before and they play good softball over there,” Auburndale coach Mike Schulte said. “Once you get to a sectional final, anything can happen. There’s probably going to be a momentum swing one way or another. It’s whether you flinch or blink, or if you can just bare down and keep playing.
“We’ve been able to do that all year. I always tell the girls that it’s not who we play, it’s how we play. When we play well, we can beat Division 2 teams, Division 3 teams, Division 4 teams, and they’ve proved it time and again.”
Griesbach and Pankratz both escaped first-inning jams and matched zeroes through 4½ innings before Auburndale got to work in the bottom of the fifth.
Back-to-back walks to lead off the frame led to trouble for the Tigers (20-7). Auburndale turned to its bunt game as Hope Schulte sacrificed the runners up a base and Chesney Nagel followed with another bunt that Pankratz fielded and flipped home, but Taylor Anderson just beat the toss home and put the Eagles on the board.
Mya Krings followed with a double to score two more, then came into score on a dropped third strike that allowed Griesbach to reach. After another sac bunt, Sammy Stanton delivered a run-scoring single, making it 5-0.
“Trust me, at the beginning of the year, we couldn’t get a bunt down, but we’re able to do that now,” Schulte said. “Anytime you’re in a big game like this, the hand gets a bit sweaty, the arm doesn’t quite feel right, and if you can just put the ball in play, things happen. Hope put a great bunt down, Chesney put a great bunt down and we were able to get that run in, then we had the top of the lineup.
“You can’t get keep Mya down for three at-bats and she really came through.”
Griesbach did the rest, getting a line drive double play to end the sixth and sending Stratford down in order in the seventh, striking out the final two batters to finish with eight in the complete-game victory.
“Morgan relishes these opportunities,” Schulte said. “The bigger the game, the better she plays. I thought we played solid defense behind her. There were some hiccups, there always are, but one of our team mottos is ‘Don’t flinch.’ Don’t flinch, just keep playing and the girls do that. They play so well as a team.”
Pankratz finished with two of Stratford’s four hits and struck out seven on the mound.
Eagles 5, Tigers 0
Stratford 000 000 0 – 0 4 1
Auburndale 000 050 x – 5 3 4
WP: Morgan Griesbach. LP: Laney Pankratz.
SO: L. Pankratz 7; Griesbach 8. BB: L. Pankratz 4; Griesbach 1.
Top hitters: S, L. Pankratz 2×3. A, Mya Krings 2B, 2 RBI, run; Sammy Stanton 1×3, RBI; Taylor Anderson 1×2, runs; Chesney Nagel run, RBI.
Records: Stratford 20-7; Auburndale 20-3.