By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
The Plover-Whiting softball team battled back but dropped an 8-0 decision to Scorpio of Phoenix, Ariz., Sunday, July 1, in the ASA/USA Softball Junior Olympic Girls 18 and Under National Qualifier at Zenoff Park.
Scorpio went through pool play and bracket play on Friday and Saturday with four victories and only one loss, a 10-6 decision to Plover-Whiting, in the finals of the double-elimination tournament.
Plover-Whiting, meanwhile, came through the tournament with four victories, but also suffered three losses, all to Scorpio.
The P-W team started out beating the Beaver Dam Tornadoes, 16-0, in pool play to determine seedings in bracket play, then lost to Scorpio, 4-1.
On Saturday, P-W defeated Sports Corner of De Pere, 2-1, in nine innings, setting up another showdown with Scorpio in the winners' bracket of the tournament. Scorpio won that game, again by a 4-1 score, sending P-W to the losers bracket.
There P-W faced Beaver Dam, a 1-0 winner over De Pere, and P-W finished the action for the Tornadoes, defeating them 6-1.
P-W started Sunday off with the 10-6 victory over Scorpio, but couldn't generate any offense in the deciding game.
With the game scoreless in the third, P-W generated a threat, loading the bases on singles by Shannon Collier, Lindsay Rosicky and Sammy Polito with one out.
But Scorpio pitcher Melissa Preciado, who allowed seven hits to P-W, got Anne Stanislawski on strikes and then Jenny Maultra flied out to left to end the inning.
P-W pitcher Lindsay Gagas held Scorpio hitless until the bottom of the third when a short pop-up fell between the second baseman and the right fielder for a single with one out.
After two more singles loaded the bases, Gagas struggled with her control, issuing three walks to walk in three runs before the side was retired.
P-W generated another threat in the fifth after two were out when Polito and Stanislawski singled, but Maultra struck out to end the inning.
Scorpio put an end to the game in the bottom of the sixth. After four singles and a walk plated two runs, Alexis Mains relieved Gagas, but she was greeted by two singles to score two more runs and end the game because of the eight-run rule.
"I though we were in the game until that last inning," said P-W manager Bill Mansur. "I thought we pitched fairly well."
He admitted Scorpio had an edge. "Playing 11 months out of the year, they could hit. I thought we stayed in the game. The difference was they had a little more consistent hitting. We had pitching and defense," he said.
Three pitchers worked for P-W during the tournament, Gagas, Mains and Kelly Jablonski. Each took a loss against Scorpio, with Mains the winning pitcher in the 10-6 slugfest.
Mansur was pleased with the tournament. "There were very good teams, very good defense," he said. "You really had to scrap out runs."
He felt the tournament was a good experience for the team because Wisconsin Rapids was the only team that had challenged Plover-Whiting this year, knocking the P-W team out of the Plover girls tournament on June 23-24.
The P-W girls won a tournament in Madison for the third year in a row several weeks ago, allowing no runs in five games behind the mound mastery of Gagas, Mansur said.
In the Junior Olympics Girls 16 and Under National Qualifier at Zenoff, also during the weekend, American Athletics Gold of Long Beach, Calif., won the title, finishing with a 4-1 record. Gold defeated San Diego Fury of San Diego, Calif., 3-1, in the championship game after the Fury handed the Gold a 5-2 loss in the first championship game.
That tournament attracted 12 teams, three from California, one from Kansas, two from Illinois, one from Michigan and five from Wisconsin, but none of them from the area. The Wisconsin teams were from Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Janesville, Mondovi and Kaukauna.