When Tori Bivens, starter for the Lake Washington High softball team, hit a batter in the hands late in Thursday’s 3A District II semifinal game, it caused quite the stir.
The Kangaroos huddled around the pitcher’s circle while the batter, West Seattle sophomore Beri Syltebo, had her fingers examined and eventually retired to the dugout. Bivens kept her glove over her mouth while the Wildcats chose a pinch hitter to step out with two strikes on the board.
“She got frustrated that she almost beaned a girl, but she knew it ended up being a strike,” Lake Washington coach Traci Tawney said. “It was the out, I think, is what she wanted. It was just frustrating that it was called foul. That poor girl that came in, it was a tough position to step in to pinch hit, and Tori said, ‘That’s enough, I’m going to get the out.'”
For whatever reason, the play seemed to have ignited the Kangs, who went on a six-run rally over the next two innings. Lake Washington went on to win 6-1 after giving up a run in the bottom of the first.
Bivens had the go-ahead RBI on a two-out single in the top of the sixth and finished with nine strikeouts and seven hits, making the final six plays on defense for Lake Washington — two strikeouts and four plays at first on grounders or bunts up the middle.
Bivens with the RBI single. Lake Washington leads 2-1, two outs in the top of the sixth. pic.twitter.com/uvgnNCKMqe
— John William Howard (@JowardHoward) May 20, 2016
Kangs needed a string of gutsy plays from center fielder Kylisa Hull to set up the rally to begin with.
First, Hull ran on to a deep fly ball in center field and gunned West Seattle’s Rosa Grossi at home plate for the third out of the fifth inning. She then drew a leadoff walk in the top of the sixth, and scored on a double from Hannah Walker to tie the game with a headfirst dive into home plate.
“She totally blew past the stop sign at third base,” Tawney said. “She put her head down and was going. Thankfully, with the wet ball, the ball sailed a little bit. We’ve taught them not to dive into home, and her mom is yelling at her not to dive into home. She’s coming up and looked right at her mom and said, ‘I’m sorry!'”
Marissa Ewald who provided the exclamation mark with a two-out triple off the center field fence in the top of the seventh. The hit scored three runs, and Ewald ran home on a wild pitch a few moments later.
Ewald triples off the fence to score three. It's now 5-1 Lake Washington. pic.twitter.com/joAou3WGn2
— John William Howard (@JowardHoward) May 20, 2016
“For a split second I did [think it was a home run], but I just kept sprinting and it didn’t go over,” she said. “I was happy with it, either way.”
The win marked the first game this season in which Lake Washington has come from behind to win, Tawney said. The Kangs have lost leads, notably to Juanita in the KingCo title game, after which Tawney was critical of Lake Washington’s discipline at the plate.
“The difference between this game and Juanita is we were able to stay disciplined,” she said. “It’s something we hit on before, and we’ve been working on it the whole tournament — whether it’s a rise-ball pitcher or not — just to make sure we’re swinging at down pitches.”
The Kangs will see another pitcher who uses a rise ball in the 3A SeaKing District II title game, a familiar face in Juanita’s Lisa Nelson, who struck out 14 Lake Washington batters last week in the team’s previous meeting.
“[West Seattle’s Gabby Wenn] got us a few times, but our girls were able to recognize their mistakes and realize, ‘that is a pitcher that I’m not supposed to swing at.'” Tawney said. “We stopped swinging at her, she was forced to come in the zone more often and she got hit and had a few walks after that. It puts pressure on the defense, and we were able to put the runs together.”
The district title game is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 20 at Southwest Athletic Complex in Seattle.
