Weber High School used the two-hit pitching of sophomore Heidi Miller and a daring double steal to pull off a 2-1 victory over defending champion Alta Wednesday in the state 4A softball tournament at the Cottonwood Softball Complex.
Trailing 1-0 in the fifth inning, with runners on first and third base, Weber coach Jan Keim called for the double steal. Sherrail Heslop broke for second, and Alta catcher Joelene Ortiz made the throw, which was cut off and thrown to the plate too late to catch Terri Tanner scoring from third. Moments later, Heslop stole third base and scored the go-ahead run on a bunt by Terra Flinders."Alta is such a great team, I felt we had to put pressure on them to see if we could get them to crack," said Keim. "They were dictating the game at that point. We dictated it after that."
In other words, it took good base running to resolve a tight pitcher's duel between Miller and Alta's Terina Kilpack, who allowed only six hits between them. Oh, and errors. Alta committed five of them - three in the decisive fifth inning.
Through four innings Miller and Kilpack combined to allow one run and one hit - a bloop single by Kilpack herself in the fourth inning.
Alta finally broke the deadlock in the fifth inning when Kirsten Alvey's single scored Kristal Hales. Weber responded with two runs in its next at-bat, and that ended the scoring. In the sixth inning, the Hawks stranded runners on second and third, then went down 1-2-3 in the seventh inning.
For Miller, it was her second victory of the day. In the first round, played earlier in the afternoon, she pitched a three-hitter to beat Mountain View 9-1. Alta had a similarly easy time in the first round, beating Clearfield 8-1 behind the one-hit pitching of Nikki Conner, who struck out 10, walked two and produced the game's lone extra-base hit (a double).
Pitching was the order of the day. In the first round of the tournament's other bracket, Skyline's Suzette Holmes gave up just one hit in a 3-2 win over Bonneville.
In the meantime, Bingham was a narrow 3-2 victor over Pleasant Grove, which went on to lose by the same score to Bonneville in the loser's bracket. Bingham went on to meet Skyline in the second round. It was no contest. Bingham won 10-0 behind the one-hit pitching of Kim Robertson and home runs by Sandy Rhea and Laura Applegate.
Thus, Bingham was scheduled to meet Weber in Friday's third round of the championship bracket (the rain moved Thursday's games back to Friday and Friday's games to Tuesday). In the loser's bracket, the matchups were Mountain View versus Skyline and Bonneville versus Alta.
Mountain View advanced to the third round with an 11th-hour win over Clearfield. The Bruins rallied for three runs in the seventh inning to claim a 9-8 victory.
In the 3A tournament, held earlier in the day, Murray, the defending 3A champion, also fell in the second round, to Springville 1-0. Dixie Lee shut out the Spartans, allowing just five hits, and teammate Kelly Jensen hit a triple.
Murray had advanced to the second round by defeating Jordan 5-2, and Springville advanced with an 8-4 win over Box Elder.
There was another upset. Granite, last year's runnerup, lost to Tooele 4-1 in the second round. Granite outhit Tooele 5-3 but committed six errors.
Earlier in the day, Tooele beat Spanish Fork 14-0, and Granite beat Pine View 8-1.
Tooele was scheduled to play Springville in the third round of the championship bracket Friday. The consolation bracket pitted Box Elder (a 12-0 winner over Jordan in the second round) against Granite, and Murray against Pine View (an 11-3 winner over Spanish Fork).