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Wolverine Softball Playoff Coverage
Summer slaps a homer for Grampa
By Matt Pranger
posted 05/26/01
Before leaving San Juan Island for the State Slowpitch Softball
Tournament, Friday Harbor left-centerfielder Summer Ausilio hugged her
terminally-ill grandfather and said: "Grampa, I'm going to hit a home run for
you." Prior to the start of tourney play, Ausilio's teammates decided to
dedicate their play to Al Ellis, an ardent fan who watched all of their home
games.
The Wolverines didn't disappoint Grampa - they romped past Royal 10-3 in the
first round and upset Seattle Christian 9-6 in the semi-finals.
Ausilio also made good on her pledge. With the Wolverines clinging to a 7-6 lead in the top of seventh in the hot afternoon sun, Ausilio had two strikes against her. Assistant coach Kevin Carlton called timeout. "I told Summer she was one of the best, if not the best hitter on our team and that her last two swings were lousy. I told her to get up there and hit the crap out of the ball. She smiled at me, turned around and rapped the ball to the left field fence."
"I was so tired," Ausilio said of racing around the base paths. "The adrenaline
gets to you. I was so pumped up. I didn't even see the ball. I just heard Coach
Woodward yell 'Go Three' and then saw Coach Carlton waving me home."
As her teammates mobbed her, Grampa listening to the dinger on a cell phone held by Ausilio's pacing mother was crying with joy. "There's a softball god up there and I know it's a woman," said Michelle Melbourne, a proud mother and daughter.
"It broke the tension," Woodward said of the homer that made the Wolverines' entry in the state championship game very likely.
Senior Katie Earley drove in another run in the seventh after Leah Evans, Kiyo
Peterman and Melissa Peacock singled.
Seattle Christian went down 1, 2, 3 in the bottom inning - Peacock struck out the final batter - and then the tears started flowing as mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandparents, boyfriends and others hugged the Wolverine players.
"I'm kind of stunned," Woodward said after the victory that put a Friday Harbor
girls team in a state final for the first time since the late 1980s.
Given the start of the game, someone unfamiliar with the Wolverines likely would have predicted the Wolverines' odds of a victory about the same as the Columbia River flooding this year: Seattle Christian, last year's runner-up, went ahead 4-0 in the bottom of the first.
Instead of becoming frustrated, the Wolverines kept their rally hopes high.
"The whole team, the bench came together. They kept the energy up throughout
the game,"Woodward said.
"It just goes to show you anything can happen in high school athletics if you keep believing in yourself," Woodward said.
"We have the best coaches in the world," Earley said. "We have confidence in ourselves and we're darn good."
Friday Harbor "linked" hits in four of the next six innings. "We were very patient at the plate," Woodward said.
"There wasn't any defense for good line-drive hitting," he added.
The Wolverines scored three runs in the second, trimming the lead to one. Melissa Peacock and Jessica Peacock singled, Kelsea Peterman hit a sacrifice fly and Earley, Sissy Carlton and Erica Percich reached base on balls.
Friday Harbor went ahead 6-3 in the third inning. After Katie Carlton and Leah Evans smacked base hits, Kiyo Peterman drove them in with on a double to center. Jessica Peacock lofted a sacrifice fly that scored Peterman.
The Wolverines appeared to be gaining control of the game in the fourth inning after Erica Percich cracked a triple and scored on a sacrifice by Kelsea Peterman.
Seattle Christian trimmed Friday Harbor's lead to one after scoring two runs in the fifth and another in the sixth before being stifled in the seventh. "We played very solidly defensively," Woodward said.
Sharon Kivisto
and
Matt Pranger
can be reached:
phone:
360.378.3748
fax:
360.378.9748
by e-mail:
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by mail:
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Friday Harbor, WA 98250 USA