High school softball: Wellington has plenty of chances, but Keystone holds Dukes off to hold on for 1-0 win

Bob Daniels | The Chronicle-Telegram

LAGRANGE — Opportunity knocked not once, but three times for Wellington’s softball team on Friday. It wasn’t enough.
The Dukes allowed just one run as Cassie Gleisner pitched an eight-strikeout three-hitter. But the third-inning run was all Keystone needed to win a Patriot Athletic Conference showdown, 1-0.
A sizeable crowd watched the Dukes (4-1, 1-1 PAC) lose for the first time on a warm and sunny afternoon. Keystone improved to 5-1, 1-0.
It was the kind of thriller the two rivals have staged many times over the years. This time, both teams were ranked statewide, Keystone first in Division II and Wellington 10th in Division III.
A major reason for the Dukes’ inability to score was Keystone pitcher Kara Dill’s 12-strikeout three-hitter. And Dill’s ability to remain calm under fire, plus some key defensive work, pulled the Wildcats’ fat from the fire three straight innings.
Wellington had runners at third base in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. But the Wildcats wiggled out of bases-loaded jams in the fifth and sixth, and Wellington stranded runners at first and third in the fourth.
Dill retired the side with her eighth strikeout in the fourth and by throwing out the batter on a grounder to the circle in the fifth. She got the third out on a looper to Kim Kokoski on the right side to end the sixth-inning threat.
“We had two or three chances where we just needed to get the ball out of the infield,” Wellington coach Tom Roth said. “(Morgan) Brasee just missed.”
He referred to the right fielder’s looper to Kokoski ending the sixth inning.
“The ball jammed her a little bit, it was on the inside,” Roth said of Brasee’s near miss. “If it hits on the big part of her bat, it ends up out there in the grass, we tie the game and we play ’til tomorrow. But the kids can’t feel bad. They played well.”
Dill said that even with Wellington runners at third base and with the bases loaded twice, she wasn’t particularly worried.
“I hate when I get myself into those situations — you know, I walk them, I hit a batter and that’s all on me,” Dill said. “But my fielders are good and our defense is so tough and so good under pressure, I have so much confidence they’re going to make a play for me. When the going gets tough, they’re going to make a play for me.”
Two such plays were made by freshman third baseman Bri Buckley. She fielded a grounder and went instinctively for a force at second base with one out in the sixth. And Buckley assisted on the first out in the seventh when she made a less-than-routine play on a grounder near the line.
“We work on a lot of situations during practice and I think that helps us during a game because we know what we’re doing,” Buckley said. “When the time comes, we know in our head what we’re going to do with the ball.”
It was also Dill who scored the run. There’s no place for it in the box score, but senior first baseman Taylor Bell should get an assist on the play.
After freshman Taylor Ford led off the third with a walk, Dill legged out an infield single to the left side. Ford and Dill moved up on a passed ball, then Bell hit a grounder to Wellington third baseman Callie McConnell. McConnell alertly threw home and nailed Ford trying to score.
But Dill moved to third and Bell, having reached on the fielder’s choice, deliberately got herself into a rundown between first and second. The ploy worked. When the Dukes made a play on the sitting-duck Bell, Dill raced home. It was the Wildcats’ only serious threat, although they had runners at second base in the second, fourth and fifth innings.
Wellington catcher Melissa Rennie was the only player with more than one hit and her fourth-inning double was the only extra-base hit of the game.
“I told the kids that playing that tough competition and being in those situations early in the year makes us stronger and gives us more confidence,” Keystone coach Jim Piazza said. “We got out of situations like that against (Ashtabula) Edgewood, we got out of situations like that against Hudson. Our kids are confident and we’re confident they’re going to make those plays.”