Published: August 18, 2008 01:49 pm      

Tecumseh stops Latta in Konawa

Konawa — Latta coach Jim Foster found a silver lining in his team’s 8-3 loss to Tecumseh Saturday, which gave the Lady Panthers their third consecutive third-place finish at the Konawa-Byng Back 2 School Classic.

“I told the girls after the game that this might be an omen,” Foster said after Saturday’s defeat eliminated his club from the tournament and sent Tecumseh against Cleveland in the championship game later in the afternoon. “We went to the state tournament after finishing third there the last two years (Latta’s first two trips ever in fast-pitch), so maybe we’ll do the same thing this year.”

Latta’s loss eliminated the last area hope from the tournament, which began Thursday with six local teams — Ada, Latta, Byng, Stonewall, Coalgate and host and defending champion Konawa — in the field. Coalgate and Stonewall went two-and-out in the double-elimination event, Ada lost two straight (to McLoud and Tecumseh) after an opening victory over Stonewall, Byng also went 1-2 (beating Stonewall and losing to Cleveland and McLoud), and Konawa (which lost just one game en route to the Class 2A state title last fall) was beaten, 4-0, by Cleveland (the 2006 tournament champ) in a winner’s bracket contest Friday and was eliminated, 3-2, by Tecumseh Saturday morning.

Tecumseh, which beat McLoud, 1-0, behind ace Kim Billie, in Saturday afternoon’s first game, sent Caitlin Cox to the mound against Latta, but she lasted just two batters and was lifted in favor of Billie after throwing just eight pitches — all balls.

Cox hit Lady Panther leadoff hitter Kaitlyn Hisaw in the helmet with on a 3-0 pitch, then walked Tara MacCollister on four straight. Billie hit Caitlyn James with a 1-0 pitch to load the bases, and Latta freshman cleanup hitter and third baseman Keeli Kessinger ripped her next offering to the wall in left-center for a bases-clearing double to put the Lady Panthers up 3-0.

From there, though, things came unraveled for Foster’s club.

After working around a two-out single by Paige Lenaburg to work a scoreless top of the first, Latta ace Autumn Lawrence surrendered five hits in each of the next two innings. Pebbles Paxson and Kenra O’Shell led off the second with singles and scored on a single to center by Autumn Walker, and Walker — after moving to second on a throw to the plate and to third on a wild pitch — scored the game-tyung run on another single up the middle by nine-hole hitter Tahnee Dewitt.

“Most of the hits they got were mistakes (Paxson, O’Shell and Dewitt all had two strikes on them when they delivered their hits in the second, and three of Tecumseh’s hits in the third also came with two strikes),” Foster said. “But this was Autumn’s third straight day to throw. Fatigue sets in early in the season, and that kinda stuff is going to happen.”

Billie started the third with a fly-ball double to the wall in left and was replaced on the bases by Katie McBay, who moved to third on Paxson’s single to left (on an 0-2 pitch). Paxson moved to second on a throw to the plate on her hit, and both runners scored on O’Shell’s seeing-eye single past a diving MacCollister and into right field to make it 5-3.

O’Shell moved to second on the throw to the plate, then Lawrence walked Haley Hernandez, and both runners moved up on a bunt down the first-base line by Walker. Latta first baseman Lashun Oakley appeared to clearly pick the ball up in foul territory, but the ball was ruled fair, and everybody was safe when Oakley failed to apply the tag on Walker.

Dewitt struck out looking at a 2-2 pitch for the first out, but Micah Laughlin reached on the only Latta error of the game as O’Shell scored the third run in the inning. Laughlin moved to second on a wild pitch that scored Hernandez to make it 7-3, she advanced to third on Goodman’s fielder’s choice grounder to Kessinger (who threw out Walker at the plate), and she scored the game’s final run on Lenaburg’s line-drive single to center.

Billie, the tough-luck loser in Latta’s 3-1 victory over Tecumseh Thursday in the tournament opener for both teams, settled down after her rocky start and allowed just three baserunners after Kessinger’s double — Lashun Oakley, who reached on an infield hit with two outs in the first, James, who reached on an error with one out in the third, and Sara Miller, who singled with two outs in the fourth (the game’s final inning because of the time limit).

Latta missed a chance to do more damage in the first, when Taylor McDonald popped out to left and Lawrence grounded out following Kessinger’s hit. Oakley followed with a bloop over the mound and reached first base safely, but Kessinger was called out for interfering with Lenaburg, the Tecumseh shortstop, as she attempted to make a play on the ball to end the inning.

“We had trouble with (Billie) the first time,” Foster said. “She’s a good pitcher.

“We just played like it was the first week of the season,” he added. “We made too many mistakes and didn’t give ourselves a chance. When you’re playing bigger schools, you can’t make mistakes like that.”

Latta (2-2) returns to action Monday, facing Ada (4 p.m.) and Dale at the Ada Festival.