The Clarksville softball team needed eight innings, but edged Newman Catholic 5-4 in heroic fashion in Tuesday’s 1A quarterfinal, as aired on 99 The Wave.
Eighth grader Cate Lodge was batting with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, and hit a ground ball to center field. When Newman’s center fielder was injured in a throwing attempt, Lodge took advantage and rounded the bases for a walk-off little league home run.
Lodge on the play.
“It’s just like crazy to me,” Lodge says. “I wasn’t planning on running to second base, and then the ball got behind the girl and then I just had to keep going.”
After giving up two runs in the top of the first, Paige Kampman doubled to drive in a run, followed by a Hannah Wangsness RBI to make it 2-2 after the first inning. Claire Lodge hit a two-run homer in the second inning for a 4-2 lead, which remained the score for the next two innings. Newman tied the game with clutch hits with two outs in the fifth, and the defenses ruled the rest of the way until the walk-off homer. Claire Lodge on how the team persevered in an intense battle.
“It’s obviously very nerve wracking because we don’t do it very often, like back and forth,” Lodge says. “But we knew that we could do it, and we just tried to stay as calm as we could. And we know that anybody on our team can hit. So we have confidence in every single person going up there. Some people say you want to have the top of the order up, not the bottom. But we can have anybody up, and they can do anything, anytime. So it’s just so fun to be able to rely on everyone, anytime that you need them.”
Head Coach Katie Burman says they performed well against elite pitching and played clean defensively.
“We knew that she’s one of the best pitchers in 1A, so to come out and score four runs at beginning of the game was huge and I think that gained our confidence quite a bit,” Burman says. “And then yeah, we just made some awesome plays. They hit the ball really well tonight and defensively if we can hold them down, if they’re hitting the ball and we’re not getting strikeouts, that’s going to be huge the rest of the tournament.”
Emmalee Manwarren led offensively with three hits. Sydney Lovrien recorded one strikeout and two walks.
The Indians will face St. Edmond in a 1A semifinal Wednesday on 99 The Wave. Coverage will start at 7:00, followed by the first pitch at 7:30.
