No. 4 Midgettes storm past No. 1 Screaming Eagles in regional semifinal

PARK FALLS, Wis. - After waiting through an hour, 25 minute thunder and lightning delay, Hurley kept the storm that is the middle of the Chequamegon lineup in check.

No. 4 seed Hurley picked up a 6-4 upset of the top-seeded Screaming Eagles in Wednesday's WIAA Division 3 regional semifinal.

Whether it was Tianne Kuula robbing Chequamegon's No. 4 hitter of a home run to center or pitcher Gabby Pecotte keeping them off-balance, the Screaming Eagles only scored four or fewer runs for the fourth time in 25 games this season.

The Midgettes will play in Friday's regional final. The other semifinal is today with No. 6 Ladysmith going to No. 2 Phillips. Ladysmith upset No. 3 Cameron 15-14 Wednesday in a quarterfinal that was rained out Tuesday. Hurley would go to Phillips or host Ladysmith.

Chequamegon had won the last three regionals and was favored to do so again as the consensus No. 1 seed. Hurley had different ideas.

"It's a good feeling," Kuula said. "We played our hardest. They're great competitors. It doesn't matter, if they win nine times out of 10, one game matters and this was it."

Hurley outhit Chequamegon 11-9. The Midgette defense made play after play.

"They hit the ball hard. We made a lot of great plays on defense," Hurley coach Jim Kivisto said. "At the same time, Gabby pitched a great game by keeping them off balance at times, too.

"To hold this team to four runs is huge. They're used to getting double digits every game. They hit some bullets, we made some beautiful plays and we're advancing."

It was a well-played game all the way around with Hurley hitting it hard and Chequamegon playing good defense as well.

"This is big for us," Kivisto said. "We knew all year long they could do this and maybe they finally realized they can do it. It'd be nice to win the regional and get on to sectionals."

The Screaming Eagles scored two runs in the bottom of the first after the delay ended at 6:25 p.m. Cleanup hitter Morgan Hilgart's double plated Emily Ernest and Hilgart came around to score on a bad throw trying to get her out at third.

The Midgettes scored just one run in the team's regular-season meeting, but they scored five runs in the top of the second Wednesday.

Kaylyn King and Felicia Herlevi started the inning with hits.

Tori Colassaco hit a one-out groundball that was played in the infield, but the infielder checked the runners for too long. King was safe back at third and Felicia Herlevi was able to get all the way back to second after almost reaching third.

King scored on a wild pitch and Kuula's single to left brought home Herlevi to tie it.

Gabby Pecotte hit another ground ball in the infield. Colassaco moved toward home but went back to third when the infielder checked her way. The throw to third went to leftfield and Colassaco scored, giving Hurley a 3-2 lead.

Kirkie Pecotte capped the inning with a two-run double that made it 5-2.

"I told the girls on the bus coming up, 'Just let it go, we got nothing to lose,'" Kivisto said of his team that has struggled at the plate at times this year. "Today, they were a little looser at bat and I think it really helped we got five runs in the second inning, we really loosened up and we had the momentum.

"Sometimes you need a little luck and we did get a little luck in that second inning, but we'll take it."

Chequamegon scored another run in the third. No. 3 hitter Danielle Masterson doubled and scored on a single by Megan Mader.

Hurley pushed the lead back to three runs, 6-3 when Paige Aho slammed a home run over the left-centerfield fence.

"It felt great," said Aho who also homered in the teams' regular-season meeting in Park Falls. "It felt great having my team behind my back 100 percent of the way. They were there for me. The whole team was there for me today. It was one of our biggest games and we were here and ready to play."

In the bottom of the fifth. with Masterson on first base, the Eagles' Hilgart hit a towering shot to centerfield. But Kuula extended for the catch and then fell through the collapsible short fence, hanging onto the ball the entire time.

"That's just taking more wind of their sails," Kivisto said. "She made a beautiful catch there."

Kuula said she didn't know the fence was right there.

"I honestly had no clue," she said.

Chequamegon scored just one run in the bottom of the sixth, despite having runners on first and second with nobody out.

The run scored on a sacrifice fly by Kayla Herbst, who was the first out. Pecotte got Korrie Herbst to ground out and then she caught a hard-hit comebacker for the final out of the inning.

After Hurley stranded two runners in the top of the seventh, Chequamegon had one final chance with the 2-3-4 hitters coming up for the fourth time in the game.

Ernest and Masterson both flew out while Hilgart got her third hit, a single to left.

Megan Mader hit a laser to first base, but Brittany Czarnecki snagged it for the third out and the celebration was on.

Pecotte struck out two, but more importantly allowed just two walks and four runs. Kivisto said 75 percent of her pitches were changeups Wednesday to keep them off stride.

"Gabby had those batters thinking up there, what was coming," Kivisto said. "That's a huge thing when a batter has to start thinking about what's coming up there."

Chequamegon could never dig its way out of the hole it dug in the second inning.

"We battled and we hit a lot of balls hard and they made some plays," Chequamegon coach Ken Dischler said. "We hit a lot of balls right at them. If they went two feet either way, some of them, but that's the game, that's why you get nine fielders out there, too. We dug a hole, but we had chances to chip away and we did chip away a little bit. They made some nice plays. We went down fighting. We hit the ball hard, a lot of them right at them."

Hurley improved to 15-6.

Hurley 0 5 0 0 1 0 0 - 6 11 1

Chequamegon 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 - 4 9 2