The Portage varsity softball team has silenced all of the doubters with a Cinderella postseason run to the state championship. The Indians punched their ticket by coming from behind to stun Huntington North 2-1 in nine innings in Saturday’s semistate championship.
The Indians’ motto all season long has been “believe,” but even the most optimistic Portage supporters began to doubt their team’s chances when Portage trailed 1-0 against undefeated Vikings’ starter Erin Rethlake with just three outs left to work with. Kaitlin Doud fouled off several pitches before lashing a single to lead-off the seventh. Doud swiped second base, but back-to-back strikeouts left Huntington North just one out away from ending Portage’s season.
Alexis Johnson singled to plate Doud and even the game at one.
“I felt a lot of pressure,” Johnson said. “I knew that if I didn’t get the hit, our team was done. I didn’t want it to go down like that. I just did what I had to do.”
In each of the three previous games, the Indians’ sixth inning at-bat proved to be the turning point, but this time Portage waited until the seventh and beyond for the dramatics.
“All I said was find a way and we had to believe,” head coach Lisa Hayes said. “They all believed, and this is what happened."
Lauren Murray, who was 0-for-2 with a walk in the game after going 0-for-2 in the semistate semifinal earlier in the day, picked an opportune moment to bust out of a slump. She clubbed a double to right field to drive in Doud and snap a 1-1 deadlock in the top of the ninth.
“They shut down a girl who hadn’t lost yet and now she’s got one,” Hayes said. “That’s the best pitcher that we’ve seen by far.”
The Indians have made a habit of handing opposing pitchers their first loss of the season, pulling the same trick on Crown Point’s Miranda Elish in the sectional semifinal.
“It’s just something we do,” Murray said.
The Indians have pulled off upsets of state ranked No. 2 Northridge, No. 5 Huntington North and No. 7 Crown Point during the run to the state finals. Portage was ranked 19th in Class 4A in the final Indiana Softball Coaches’ Association poll.
According to Murray, the doubters remained vocal following Portage’s 2-0 victory over Northridge in Saturday morning’s semistate semifinal.
“I guess their (Huntington North’s) parents said that we got lucky with our last win, so we had to come out here and show them that we’re no joke,” Murray said.
All six postseason games have been decided by one or two runs.
Hayes was the junior varsity coach when the seniors were freshmen and sophomores before moving up with most of them to the varsity team last season. Catcher Haley Hodges was a member of Hayes’s 2009 freshman volleyball team, the first squad she coached at PHS.
“It just means the world to have these seniors come up like this,” Hayes said. “It’s just so surreal. It means more than anything as far as coaching life goes. This is a great way to send the seniors out.”
Huntington North threatened in the bottom of the ninth, putting two runners on base with two outs before sophomore pitcher Kiley Jones caught Makayla Whaley looking to end the game.
“It was rough to get through that, but I knew I had my team behind me,” Jones said. “Obviously I was very nervous and pretty worried, but I had confidence in myself and the team that was behind me to throw the ball, whether the umpire called it or not. It was hard to get a strike, but I had to keep working through it.”
Hayes said the semistate championship was Jones’s best outing of the season.
“I don’t care what else she’s done, I know she threw a no-hitter against Highland, but this topped it by far,” Hayes said. “She did an amazing job and shut down a team that is batting .450.”
Jones pitched all 15 innings of the two semistate games, allowing just four hits against Northridge and three against Huntington North.
In the morning game against the Raiders, Jalise McKnight snapped a scoreless tie with a single that drove in Stephanie Upton, who had tripled to lead-off the frame. McKnight scored Portage’s second run on a run-scoring fielder’s choice off the bat of Hodges.
The Indians advance to the state finals at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis at 6:30 p.m. Central Time on Saturday, June 8. Portage will meet the winner of the Bedford North Lawrence Semistate, which was postponed until Monday.
Pendleton Heights (26-4), Franklin Central (19-5), Plainfield (17-10) and Jennings County (25-7) will vie for the right to take on Portage.
The lady-Indians returned to Portage with a police escort and were greeted at the school by a group of students and parents that had congregated to congratulate the semistate champions.