The St. Anthony Lady Bulldogs are one of the top softball teams in the state and they continue to prove that.
Over the weekend, they won four straight games to capture the Rantoul Invitational.
SAHS started things off with a 13-0 shutout over Villa Grove on Friday. Lucy Fearday pitched a three-hit shutout. She struck out five and didn’t walk a batter.
St. Anthony banged out 12 hits and used an eight-run fifth to break the game wide open. Hailey Niebrugge and Abbi Hatton both had two hits and three RBI, while Fearday also collected two hits and drove in a pair.
On Saturday, the Lady Bulldogs beat Grant Community 10-2; Bradley Bourbonnais 5-2; and Pekin 15-0 to capture the invitational championship.
A six-run third carried St. Anthony against Grant Community. They combined six hits and an error, and got a two-run double by Addie Wernsing.
Cameron Rios, Niebrugge and Ava Feber each had two hits in the 11-hit attack. One of the hits by Rios was an inside-the-park home run. Hatton and Wernsing both drove home two.
Sydney Kibler got the win, allowing four hits and two runs. She struck out eight and walked four.
The Lady Bulldogs toughest game was against Bradley Bourbonnais. They fell behind 2-0, but scored single runs in the third and fourth and then tallied three times in the fifth. Rios had another inside-the-park homer in the third.
In the deciding fifth, Wernsing had a one-out triple and then scored on an error. Later in the inning, Maddie Kibler had an RBI double and Sydney Kibler followed with a run-scoring single.
Fearday was the winning pitcher.
In the final game against Pekin, the Lady Bulldogs took control early, scoring six runs in the first inning. Fearday had an RBI triple, Maddie Kibler drove home a run with a base hit and Hatton delivered a two-run double in that opening inning.
St. Anthony added two runs in the second and then wrapped up the scoring with a seven-run third. Maddie Kibler blasted a two-run homer in that seventh. Fearday won her third game of the invitational.
The Lady Bulldogs improved to 7-1 on the season. They will play today (Monday) at Cowden-Herrick/Beecher City.
Sydney Kibler proved to be virtually unhittable Tuesday afternoon.
The sophomore righthander didn’t give up a hit, struck out 12 and allowed just two baserunners, helping the St. Anthony Lady Bulldogs post a 6-0 victory at home over Flora.
Kibler retired the first 13 batters she faced before issuing a one-out walk in the fifth. The only other Flora runner came due to an error in the seventh.
Her teammates provided plenty of offensive support, banging out 12 hits and scoring two runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings.
The Lady Bulldogs opened the scoring in the third. Cameron Rios led off with an infield single, stole second and scored on a base hit by Addie Wernsing. Maddie Kibler added a two-out RBI single to make it 2-0.
Hailey Niebrugge lined a two-run double in the fourth and Anna Faber added a two-run single in the fifth to wrap up the scoring.
The Lady Bulldogs, who improved to 3-1, is scheduled to play at home today (Wednesday) against South Central.
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
Coming into the semifinal game of the state tournament, all anybody could talk about was Makenzie Brown.
She is the talented, hard-throwing pitcher with Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond (ALAH) that has already committed to Tulsa University. And no matter who you talked to, everyone was raving about her.
The tall right-hander is a terrific pitcher and is the main reason the 22-3 Lady Knights had reached the state tournament.
During the season, Brown racked up double-digit strikeouts in every game, had pitches reach 70 mph (10 mph faster than virtually anybody else throws), gave up very few hits and had allowed just one run in her last 18 games – and that was unearned.
How did St. Anthony even have a chance?
Unless you talked to someone wearing red and white, the overwhelming opinion was the small parochial school had none.
But that was no different than the sectional or super sectional. The Lady Bulldogs were the underdogs in every game. And for three straight games, this young softball team proved all the doubters wrong.
Let’s make it four straight.
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
It was a game fitting of a state championship.
Two talented, equally-matched teams battling to the very end. The outcome couldn’t even be decided in regulation innings.
It was a game that either team could have won.
But neither team was a loser.
It was a game decided by a walk-off hit, but both teams walked off the field with their heads held high.
It was a game between a team of veterans with players committed to playing at the next level and quite possibly the youngest team in the entire state without a single senior on the squad.
It was a game between the No. 1 team in the state and a team that wasn’t supposed to survive the sectional.
Or the super sectional.
Or the state tournament semifinal game.
But heading to the bottom of the eighth inning, the upstart St. Anthony Lady Bulldogs had competed on even terms with the top-ranked Illini Bluffs Lady Tigers.
In that deciding inning, Kristen Graham delivered the game-winning, walk-off base hit to give Illini Bluffs the 3-2 victory in the championship game of the Class 1A State Tournament, played Wednesday afternoon at the Louisville Sluggers Sports Complex in Peoria.
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
Nobody saw this coming.
Nobody.
Yes, the St. Anthony Lady Bulldogs were the top seed in their sub-regional. But once the sectional began, the word “underdog” was used a lot.
Each of their last three opponents – Hutsonville-Palestine, Casey-Westfield and Marissa-Coulterville -- had better records and more experience.
But when the Class 1A State Tournament begins Wednesday, those three teams will only be spectators.
The Lady Bulldogs will take the field, a member of the Final Four, and potentially just two wins away from a state title.
That became reality Monday afternoon when St. Anthony combined all three facets of the game – pitching, defense and hitting – into a 4-1 victory over previously undefeated Marissa in the Johnston City Super Sectional.
“This has been one wild ride to remember,” St. Anthony Coach Makayla Walsh said. “The girls will remember this for the rest of their lives.
“At the beginning of the year, every team sets their goals and every team wants to go to the state tournament,” Walsh added. “To be honest, though, we didn’t expect this. But it’s been a fun run.”
The Lady Bulldogs will play ALAH (Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond) in a semifinal game Saturday. ALAH defeated Ottawa Marquette 1-0 in its super sectional contest.
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