By KEITH DUNLAP

Of The Oakland Press

CHELSEA — It’s always unfortunate when one bad inning winds up ending a terrific season prematurely.

Such was the case for Lakeland’s No. 2-ranked softball team in a Division 1 state quarterfinal against Portage Central on Tuesday.

The Eagles hadn’t given up more than five runs in an entire game this year, but saw Portage Central score six runs in the bottom of the second, which turned out to be the difference in a 7-1 Central victory.

While Central moves onto Friday’s state semifinals in Battle Creek, Lakeland (38-2) fell in the quarterfinals for the second straight year.

“Games are like that sometimes,” Lakeland head coach Joe Alsup said. “They get out of hand or the other team gets things happening, and it’s all of a sudden tough to stop the snowball from running down the hill. That’s what kind of happened today.”

Indeed, what could go wrong went wrong in the second for Lakeland and starter Carlee Meek, who had a good year but simply didn’t have it against Central.

After a walk to leadoff the inning, Meek threw a subsequent sacrifice bunt errantly into right field to put runners on second and third.

Following an intentional walk, an RBI single on a grounder up the middle and another RBI single on a bloop hit just over a drawn-in infield gave the Mustangs a 2-0 lead.

Central took a 3-0 lead on a bases-loaded walk and then added three more runs to take a 6-0 lead after the second.

Meek ended up only lasting one inning for the Eagles.

Even though it didn’t score in the first inning, Central might have showed it was locked in on Meek in the first when the Mustangs hit two long fly balls that were caught just in front of the fence.

“It showed that we were making great contact offensively,” Central head coach Dana Grosser said. “We’ll take that.”

Central added a run in the fifth before Lakeland scored its only run in the top of the seventh on an RBI single by Erica Rizzo.

Central improved to 32-10 and will meet Hudsonville in a state semifinal at 1 p.m. on Friday in Battle Creek.

“We were the underdogs playing a team that was 38-1,” Grosser said. “The good thing going for us was that their one loss came to a team we just beat (Howell). So that helped us get a lot of momentum right off the bat.”

A bright spot for the Eagles was sophomore relief pitcher Michelle Stiltner, who struck out nine batters in six innings of relief for Lakeland.

Offensively, sophomore Kelsey Johnson led the way by going 2-for-3 with a double and a run scored.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, the damage was already done after the second, particularly with the way Central sophomore pitcher Becca Shemberger pitched.

Shemberger allowed only five hits and struck out 13 batters in a complete-game win.

It was not only the second straight time Lakeland has lost in the quarterfinals, but it was the second straight year the Eagles lost on Chelsea’s field.

Lakeland was defeated by Howell in last year’s quarterfinals, 3-0.

“They were the better team today,” Alsup said. “They outplayed us. Michelle did a great job. She’ll do a lot of pitching next year.”

The Eagles will lose valuable seniors in Rizzo, Andie Dawson, Kayla Craft, Lindsay Nosek and Rachel Hammer, but they should still be one of the state’s best teams again next year.

“We’ve got a lot of kids returning,” Alsup said. “We return 14 kids next year. We’ve got a lot of kids ready to go and other kids that want to take their places.”

With Lakeland and Troy both losing on Tuesday, it creates a rare situation where no softball teams from Oakland County will be at the state’s final four this year.

 

Contact Keith Dunlap at keith.dunlap@oakpress.com.