By Rob Patrick
BENTONVILLE — Lisa Stanfield lobbied hard to get the game played.
With rain falling for the sixth consecutive day in northwest Arkansas, officials at the Class 7A State softball tournament at Bentonville High School, having finally reached the semifinals, were considering postponing the last two games of the day on Tuesday. The quarterfinals had just been completed and the final four teams were all from the 7A-Central Conference, including Stanfield's Bryant Lady Hornets, who won the regular-season championship in that league, earning the top seed to the tourney.
In a tournament that featured a 30-1 Fayetteville team as the odds-on favorite, suddenly it was Bryant in the cat-bird seat.
And having the top seed proved to be more of an advantage than usual when it was decided that the game would be played between the Lady Hornets and the rival Conway Lady Wampus Cats. Earlier in the day, the Lady Cats had dodged the raindrops well enough to eliminate the host Lady Tigers of Bentonville 4-1.
With Conway and Bryant in one semifinal, and Cabot, which upset Fayetteville in a game suspended on Monday night and completed Tuesday morning, along with defending State champion North Little Rock in the other, there was the thought that the games could be postponed and to avoid forcing the four teams to travel so far again or stay another night, they could play at a neutral location in central Arkansas to determine which two teams would return to play the State title game in Fayetteville on Saturday. Having already played, Conway was lobbying for that decision and the chance to take on Bryant afresh on another day at another place.
"For one thing, we've been playing in this mess all week and there was no reason not to keep playing," Stanfield related. "I would've been fighting the same fight that Conway was fighting if I was in their position. They had to do what they had to do and I've got to do what I've got to do and push to play. It was tense. I think it was the right thing to do. And I think, tonight, we were the better team anyway.
"Being able to see live pitching (on Monday in a 12-2 win over Springdale Har-Ber) and then come out rested, and having had time to review my notes on Conway, it was really nice to come in fresh," she added. "We really didn't feel the rain coming in fresh like that."
Yes, the game was played and, behind the five-hit shutout tossed by senior Christen Kirchner and a 14-hit attack on offense led by Jessie Taylor and Kayla Sory, the Lady Hornets earned a spot in the Class 7A State championship game this Saturday at noon with an 8-0 win over Conway.[more]
As it turned out, the Cabot-North Little Rock game was postponed when it kept raining during the Bryant-Conway game. Despite bag after bag of Field Dry after almost every half inning, the field was just too soaked. They'll be playing sometime this week, closer to home, to determine which will take on the Lady Hornets for the title.
It'll be the third time in Stanfield's six years at Bryant that the Lady Hornets have been to the championship game. They're hoping the third time's the charm.
"It's a dream come true," the coach stated, "And we're fixing to finish this time."
Beating Conway, the team that probably gave them the toughest time in the regular season, made it all the sweeter. Both times the teams met, they went to extra innings. Conway beat Bryant, 6-4, on the Lady Hornets' field early in the year. Bryant countered late in the year with a 10-4 win at Conway that took nine innings to decide.
"They've been our biggest competition the whole year," Kirchner explained. "The time they beat us, that just really got to us. We just knew we had to beat them."
As had been the case against Har-Ber, the Lady Hornets jumped into the lead early, scoring one in the first, two in the second and two more in the third.
"We felt we really needed to jump out quick on Conway," Stanfield acknowledged. "The girls knew that Conway wasn't hyped up about playing again in the rain and everything. The girls wanted to play. I think they would've wanted to play even if it was our second game. They were just ready to say, 'We're in the finals.'"
Kirchner said the rain was no factor for her. "I'm used to pitching in the rain," she stated. "Whenever I was little, I'd go practice in the rain.
"We wanted to just be patient at the plate," Kirchner added. "We knew that the rain was going to be a factor, a huge factor."
Jenna Bruick, one of five freshman (along with Cassidy Wilson, Jessie Taylor, Peyton Jenkins and Kayla Sory) that start for the Lady Hornets, started the bottom of the first with a slap single that she legged out. Kirchner blasted a long fly to the deepest part of the field. It was caught but Bruick tagged and advanced to second. She took third on Cassidy Wilson's grounder to second then scored on a clutch single up the middle by Taylor.
In the second, Sory singled to right, senior Sarah Hart singled to left and, with one out, Paige Turpin beat out an infield hit to load the bases. Bruick followed with a tap to third that resulted in a force at the plate but Kirchner's infield hit brought Hart home and, moments later, Turpin raced in from third on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.
In the third, Jenkins reached on a one-out error, Sory beat out a bunt single and, after Hart sacrificed them to second and third, sophomore Kim Wilson ripped a shot to the left of the shortstop that was hit so hard it split the outfielders and went to the fence for a two-run double and a 5-0 advantage.
Kirchner, meanwhile, had pitched around a two-out single to Kristin Shock in the first. In the second, J.B. Davis singled to start the inning and, with one out, was sacrificed to second by Mandy Eggert. Emily Hoover walked but Kirchner got off the hook by getting Jordan Yandell to ground out to Cassidy Wilson at short.
In the top of the third, Nikol Domengeaux singled with one out. Shock walked and Natalye Chudy beat out an infield hit to load the bases. But Kirchner fanned Davis and Hart gunned a throw to Taylor at third to pick off Domengeaux to end the inning.
That started a run in which Kirchner set down 12 batters in a row before giving up a double to Hoover with two out in the top of the seventh. She followed up with a strikeout — her fifth — to end the game.
"I knew she'd be tough today because she just gets tougher when the pressure's on," Stanfield observed. "I was real proud of her. It's easy to complain about the conditions but we went with what was working for the conditions for her, using certain pitches keeping in mind there were certain places she couldn't step. She pushed through. I knew she would."
The Lady Hornets had added some insurance by then. In the home sixth, Kirchner doubled to the fence in right-center, Cassidy Wilson walked and Taylor singled in a run. Wilson scored on a groundout by Jenkins and Taylor raced home on a wild pitch before Sory cracked her third hit of the game.
Stanfield thus delivered on what she'd said at the start of the season. "It might be more pressure on myself," she declared, "but I think if I do my job as a coach, we should be able to win a lot of ballgames."
Just one more and it'll be the greatest season in Lady Hornets' fast-pitch softball history.
So far.
