Sports

Ladyjacks down NDSCS once, Century twice to book place at regionals

By Matthew Semisch

05/06/2014

Not much comes easy at the business end of any sports season.
The Dakota College at Bottineau softball team found this out Saturday and Sunday as the Ladyjacks hosted an NJCAA sub-regional tournament.

Things started brightly for DCB, though, when it took on the North Dakota State College of Science Saturday afternoon in the opening game of the two-day competition.

The teams had recent history, with DCB only a little over two weeks ago pounding NDSCS 19-0 and 18-2 April 15 in a doubleheader on the road in Wahpeton. Saturday saw the Wildcats take an even more severe beating, though, with the Ladyjacks winning 29-1.

A five-run first inning for DCB set the pace in that game, and 13 runs from the Ladyjacks in the fourth inning only cemented the notion that this hadn’t been much of a contest.

DCB pitcher Bethany Coleman was superb in the circle for the Ladyjacks, striking out five NDSCS batters.

The bats of those in green and white were red-hot against the Wildcats. The Ladyjacks ended the game with 31 hits in the game and, perhaps even more staggering, each of DCB’s starters had at least three base knocks to their names in the rout of NDSCS.

Amber Gabel, a Mayville State recruit, and Coleman led the way for the Ladyjacks at the dish. Batting second and third in DCB’s lineup, they both ended the game with five hits apiece.

Later that afternoon, DCB squared off with Century College (Minn.) in the third game of the first day of the tournament. The first day provided a round-robin format, with all three teams in the sub-regional competition playing twice.

After Century downed NDSCS, the Wood Ducks took on the host team. DCB won there, too, by an 8-4 count.

Taylor Glass pitched in the Ladyjacks’ second game of the tournament in her first outing in the circle in a month and a half following an injury to the meniscus cartilage in her plant leg.

She and her teammates struggled at the start of their second game of the day, as Century got on the board in the first inning and more than held its own early on. Glass got better as the game went on, though, eventually striking out seven in an 8-4 win.

The Ladyjacks’ bats heated up as the game went on, too. Heidi Riley, DCB’s lead-off batter, scored the hosts’ lone run in the first inning, but after going away quietly in the second, DCB scored three in the third inning before another two in the fifth ended up being enough.

However, Ladyjacks head coach Mike Getzloff wasn’t altogether pleased with what he’d seen. Following DCB’s romp over NDSCS, Getzloff had been worried about a possible letdown against Century, another team DCB was favored to beat.
In the end, at least in Getzloff’s eyes, that letdown happened.

“’Concerned’ is too strong of a word,” Getzloff said, “But when you win a game really, really easily and then come back and play a team you know in your heart you’re better than, I’m always afraid of a letdown, and you could see that we had that a little bit.

“We had a bit of a letdown and I feel we’re clearly a better team than they are, and while they have some good players, I really liked their at-bats, but overall I’m really pleased with our play.

The best news out of DCB’s two wins Saturday was that it meant the Lumberjacks only had to play one game on Sunday. If they had lost to either NDSCS or Century on Saturday, they would have had to play in a play-in game early Sunday afternoon to get into the sub-regional final against whichever team had the best record from the day before.

That team ended up being DCB, although Getzloff still went into Sunday’s action with a little bit of trepidation. However, only playing the one game Sunday meant the opportunity for a letdown wasn’t there like it had been the afternoon before.

“The funny thing now is we’re really not in the driver’s seat,” Getzloff said, “Because if we lose our one game tomorrow, we don’t advance. If Wahpeton wins the play-in and then beats us, they advance even though we have a better record, so we just have to take care of business.

“In terms of what needs to change tomorrow, it shouldn’t matter as long as we go out there and do what we have to do. We’re fortunate, though, that we just have the one game instead of a play-in and then the final.

“That way, we don’t have to worry about going up on a high in a first game and then having what happened today happen again, so that will be to our advantage,” Getzloff continued.

Indeed it was, as the Ladyjacks won their sub-regional final Sunday by a 9-1 score over Century. The Wood Ducks kept DCB from getting on the board in the first inning, but when Glass scored the second of two Ladyjacks runs in the following frame, that ended up being enough run support for starting pitcher Danielle Gibson.

Gibson, a sophomore set to transfer to Minot State in the fall, was superb in her last-ever home game for the Ladyjacks. She struck out six Wood Ducks over five and one-third innings pitched.

Coleman, a sophomore herself who will play for Presentation College in Aberdeen, S.D. over the next two seasons, came in in relief for Gibson and shut Century down in the top of the sixth inning.

The Wood Ducks never saw a seventh on Sunday. Entering the bottom of the sixth inning, DCB pushed six more runs across home plate to extend its lead to 9-1.

That invoked college softball’s eight-run rule, which ends games early if a team is ahead by that many runs at any point by the end of the fifth inning.

College and high school baseball have a similar rule that states a game is ruled to be over when one team finds itself ahead over the other by at least 10 runs by the end of the fifth frame.

Getzloff’s notion that DCB was a better team than Century proved to be true, then. However, with the teams’ rematch on Sunday, it was less the challenge  of one team proving itself superior over another and more one team working to end the other’s season.

“That’s definitely tougher, and (Century) has probably five players that would start for anyone. They have some real nice players and they’re well-coached, and we ran a couple of things that didn’t work against them that did work against other teams.”
Getzloff was also impressed with his sophomores’ ability to stand up and be counted in their final home game as Ladyjacks.

“We have a lot of sophomores and they really stepped up for us,” Getzloff said. “We’d been playing well all season, but when it came to this weekend, I looked particularly at our sophomores and told all the girls before the game (Sunday) that, you know, ‘this is it: If we win, then we advance, but if we lose, we’re done.’

“They responded, but we had to scratch for everything we got today, and credit to Century for that. They played well defensively and it was a good game, and I didn’t feel the score was indicative of the game - We’re not 9-1 better than them.”

Getzloff was also quick to praise Gibson’s performance against the Wood Ducks.
“I didn’t know who would start (as a pitcher) for us until an hour before the game started today, but I knew ‘Gibby’ wouldn’t be rattled,” Getzloff said. “This was the biggest game she’d ever pitched, and she’s always kind of been the ‘other pitcher,’ but I’ve always said I’m not so sure she isn’t our best pitcher.”

With the win Sunday, the Ladyjacks advanced to the NJCAA Region XIII championships in Rochester, Minn. DCB’s next opponent will be St. Cloud Tech (Minn.), although start times for the action in Rochester were not available at press time.

Rochester Community and Technical College and Riverland Community College from Austin, Minn., will also take part in the regional finals.

RCTC is the No. 1 seed in the four-team competition. DCB is seeded second, followed by St. Cloud Tech and Riverland.