Lutheran’s state championship ‘bigger than enormous’

(SOUTHSIDER VOICE PHOTOS BY AL STILLEY) Lutheran’s newly crowned 2019 IHSAA Class 1A state championship team shows off the title trophy while gathered for traditional championship photo after defeating No. 1 Pioneer Saturday. Team members are, not in order, Gabby Moore, Emily Streib, Kayla Dillinger, Rylee Morris, Kerri Selzer, Paige Mielke, Kaylee Gregory, Miranda Dunn, Kathyrn Garner, Bekah Caston, Hailey Black, Quinn Johnson, Katelynn Campbell and Dani Steward. Coaches are head coach Kevin Schmidt and assistants Krystal Brazel and Brian Feely.

(SOUTHSIDER VOICE PHOTOS BY KIMMIE KUEHR) Lutheran juniors, from left, second-baseman Katelynn Campbell, starting pitcher Kaylee Gregory and shortstop Gabby Moore are all smiles after the Saints won the school’s third IHSAA Class 1A state softball championship Saturday.

Lutheran senior catcher Miranda Dunn checks out her IHSAA state championship medal while classmate Rylee Morris shows her medal to admiring Saints’ fans at Purdue University’s Bittinger Stadium. No. 9 Lutheran upended No. 1 and defending state champion Pioneer for the 1A softball championship Saturday.

Lutheran senior Rylee Morris is one of three seniors who bowed out of their high school athletic careers with 1A state championship medals.

Lutheran players celebrate the title by gathering at the circle.

By Al Stilley
Editor

“This is bigger than enormous!”

With those ecstatic words, three-sport senior Rylee Morris summed up Lutheran’s third 1A IHSAA state championship against power-hitting and defending state champ Pioneer.

Morris broke up a 1-1 deadlock in the top of the seventh with a smash hit to centerfield that brought in teammates Kerri Selzer from third and Gabby Moore from second. Next up, sophomore Quinn Johnson singled to center scoring Kaylee Gregory from second for the final 4-1 count.

This was the Saints first state championship trophy since 2004. It was fitting that Morris and her senior classmates Miranda Dunn and Hailey Black finally held high the coveted trophy in front of the Lutheran faithful at Purdue University’s softball field.

Lutheran collected six hits off pioneer pitcher Hailey Cripe, who entered the title match-up with an impressive 11-0 record and 0.39 earned run average.

The Saints tagged Cripe for eight hits and three earned runs with a display of late-game savvy that they showed in the semistate opener June 1 against Covenant Christian.

Junior Kaylee Gregory pitched five and two-thirds innings, gave up seven hits, a lone earned run and struck out seven Panthers.

Morris’ seventh-inning, two-RBi single atoned for a rare miscue in the sixth when Mackenzie Walker’s hard shot to leftfield bounced off her glove. Walker then scored Pioneer’s only run on a deep fly-out to centerfield.

“When I went up to the plate, I was thinking, ‘I gotta fix this somehow,’” said Morris who also starred in volleyball and basketball at Lutheran. “I hit the ball, I hit the ball and I headed for first.”

Pioneer had hit 61 home runs this season, but that stat went out the window as Gregory mixed her pitchers that kept the Panthers power hitters off balance. Dunn wrapped up by getting the final out in the sixth on a grounder and only allowing one runner on base in the seventh.

Gregory said she did not look at the Panthers’ stats before the game.

“I didn’t want to look,” the right-handed pitcher said. “I don’t throw a fast ball, so I had to rely on being able to spin the ball and keep them from getting deep hits.”

The junior hurler survived some pressure-packed innings. In the second, Pioneer loaded the bases with one out, but Gregory got a strike out on a change-up and a fly out to end the threat. In the third with runners on first and second with one out, she struck out the last two batters.

“The defense had my back all season,” Gregory said. ‘And they showed it again.’

Lutheran broke open the scoreless game in the fifth when Dunn hit a grounder to short for a force-out at second but then overthrew to first base, allowing Gregory to score from second.

The Panthers tied it in the sixth but were held scoreless in the seventh.
Afterward, fifth-year coach Kevin Schmidt kissed the trophy for the first time.

“This (championship) brings unity to the Lutheran community and the Beech Grove area,” Schmidt said. “It means everything to be able to continue the softball-rich tradition at Lutheran.’

Then the fifth-year Saints’ coach summed up the game by saying, “We were able to force their pitcher into keep counts at the plate. And once we got a good look at her, we were able to get hits. And Kaylee was hitting her spots and really keeping their hitters off-balance with good speed and good placement of her pitches.”

Pioneer left nine runners stranded and committed three errors. The Saints left eight runners stranded.

The Saints finish with a 21-7-1 record; Pioneer ends 31-3. Lutheran won 10 of its last 11 games. The Saints won state titles in 2004 and 2007 under Joe Tilford. The Saints have played in nine state championship games, all in Class 1A.