3A high school softball championship: Not surprisingly, Bear River brings home 3A softball crown
"I knew at the beginning of the year that we had a really good team, but you still have to perform on the field," said Bear River coach Calvin Bingham about his team, which was the heavy favorite in 3A action in spite of the fact that the Bears have only two seniors on the roster.
And the team they finally took out in that final game, 3-0, was a surprise team from Cedar City that came from down south to storm into the state tournament.
"It's quite amazing that we're here. I had no clue we'd get here. ... We've never been as far as this game before. I hope we have another chance, but it doesn't always happen," said Cedar coach Tom Cardon, about his own team, which fields only a pair of seniors.
The Cedar team had split two previous games with Bear River, winning 2-1 back in March and losing the semifinal match-up on Friday with a 5-1 score.
But no matter how many times the two had matched up or how intense the earlier game Saturday for Cedar was in order to get into the championship, the Bears remained calm and just played their game, knowing they had what it took.
"This was great," she added. "I'd never played in a championship game before."
And through the first three innings, it was a defensive and pitching masterpiece for both teams as neither could manage to even get a runner past second base. But the Bears' bats came out in the bottom of the fourth as Hodge started things off with a single to center with just one out.
Madison Jensen followed with the only walk of the contest to either team. Pitcher and 3A tournament MVP Josi Summers then hit into a fielder's choice that got to the bag just a little bit late and picked up what turned out to be the game-winning RBI with the at-bat.
Singles for Nicole Johnson, Kayla Webb and Kallie Bowcutt followed, and when all was said and done the Bears had brought in the only three runs the game would see.
"It made me more comfortable with where we were, gave me more of a cushion," said Summers after her team had taken the lead. She then added that she'd changed up her pitching style just a little to deal with some tough Cedar hitters.
"They've already seen me twice before, so I threw more off-speed, but I was confident in my defense," said Summers.
Summers had plenty of reason to be comfortable with her defense. Neither team picked up a single error, and there were several nice plays during the afternoon. But great defense is nothing new for the Bears as they've given up very few bases on errors all season long.
Recent comments
Congrat's on special season! Good job to a catcher who called...
Bear Fan | May 18, 2008 at 9:34 p.m.
Congrats to Bear River!! With only two seniors on the team, I will...
BR Alum | May 18, 2008 at 10:55 a.m.
