RAVENNA — Young teams, no matter how good they are, make occasional mistakes, and some key ones ended Shelby’s season at least one game earlier than it’d have preferred Saturday in the regional semifinals against No. 5-ranked Morley-Stanwood, as the Mohawks escaped 6-5.
The final four runs by Morley-Stanwood were all unearned. The Tigers led 3-2 in the fifth inning when an error allowed the tying run to score, and two batters in the seventh reached on errors, which led to a three-run inning that made the difference in the game.
In all, the Tigers were charged with seven errors in the game.
“At the end of the day, to win a big game and to play in a regional championship, you’ve got to make those plays,” Shelby coach Kevin Burmeister said. “Not the diving plays or the wild plays - the plays that, you throw from third across to first, you’ve got to make that out. Fly balls, we have to catch fly balls.
“The message to the girls is, we had a great year. We improved a ton, but we’ve got to get back to work. It hurts today, but we need to get back to work. I think we’re heading in the right direction.”
The Tigers were tantalizingly close, taking a 3-2 lead in the third thanks to a huge two-run double by Emma Stovall, followed by Stovall stealing third and coming in to score on a wild pitch. Stovall’s hit drove in Izzy Rudat, who led off the inning with a walk, and Jayna Burmeister, who singled.
However, in the fifth, the Mohawks’ Lacey Bongard reached on an error, stole second, went to third on a groundout, then scored on another error.
The two seventh-inning miscues hurt even more. Taylor Schuberg and Saige Okoski reached on errors, went to second and third on a wild pitch, and both later scored. Burmeister tried in vain to get Schuberg at the plate after fielding a high hopper, and the Mohawks’ Abby Dard delivered a huge blow with a two-run single.
Burmeister got those two runs back by blasting a two-run home run to right center field in the bottom of the seventh, but the Tigers fell one run short.
While Burmeister was on the short end of the decision, she only allowed one earned run on five hits, striking out eight - a gutsy performance against a great opponent.
“Maybe this is biased because I’m her dad, but Jayna threw one of her best games of the year today in a tough situation against a really good team,” coach Burmeister said. “We didn’t win or lose the game in the circle.”
It was hard to quantify how much of the fielding troubles were due to the team’s youth; the Tigers have no seniors on their roster, which creates a ton of optimism for this year. That fact is also why the team’s motto all year was “Compete.”
“I’ve played this game a long time and we’ve always been told that the first person who starts hanging their head, the ball always finds them again,” coach Burmeister said. “When we say, ‘Compete,’ it’s not with (our opponent), it’s (in our heads). Our move is, ‘Next play, next play.’ I could dwell on a ground ball or a fly ball, but I can’t change it until I get the next one. That’s something we’re continuing to get better at.
“When errors happen, that’s part of the game. If you watch any game, you’ll see an error. In a great game, there’s no errors, and it’s really hard to have a great game against a really good team.”
In addition to Burmeister’s two hits and Stovall’s big double, Gabby LaFever drew two walks in the game for Shelby.
The way the season ended - a close loss that might have been a win with a cleaner performance - will no doubt motivate the Tigers, all of whom will be back next year. Shelby has grown from a team whose current juniors went winless in the conference their freshman seasons to a team that went toe to toe with a regional finalist and can reasonably hope to compete with the likes of Morley-Stanwood or Ravenna, the latter of which won the regional title, 6-0, later Saturday.
“To do what these two programs are doing and to win games like that, it’s not, ‘I’m going to pick the ball up in April and start playing,’” Burmeister smiled. “We had a ton of growth this year. We played 39 games this year and went 27-12, I think. It was awesome...(Now,) we need to compete in the offseason. We have to get better.”
