Demons take 2 in Saturday tournament

Thursday, the Washington High School Demons played a 12-inning softball game against Southeast Conference foe Ft. Madison and won.

Saturday, the Demons had the experience of knowing what it took to win an extra-inning game and came through in the bottom of the ninth inning with a 5-4 win over Monticello. The Demons also defeated Pekin 12-2 in five innings earlier in the day.

'It was a good pressure situation again for us and we came through,” Washington head coach Ben Obermann said.

The circumstances were a bit different as the International rules were followed for extra innings and a runner was placed on second base to start each team's half of the inning.

'Defensively, I thought we really responded well to having that runner on second base,” Obermann said. 'We are going to face situations like that once regionals get here. I have to give our kids a lot of credit for rising up in those situations.”

Molly Sparks rose up in the circle and in the batter's box.

Cara Linnenkamp gave up three Monticello runs in the first inning, but settled in and held the Panthers scoreless until a double and a single scored a run with one out in the seventh inning.

Sparks came in and struck out the first batter she faced and induced a ground out. She set the Panthers down in order in both the eighth and ninth innings.

'I was ready to come in,” she said. 'I was doing good and my spins were doing great. I was ready.”

To start the ninth inning, Monticello intentionally walked Kellie Dallmeyer, who had homered for the Demons' first run of the game and hustled to turn a seemingly innocent pop-up out into a double that turned into the tying run in the seventh inning off of Alexa Mitchell's clutch two-out single.

Kinsey Duwa walked to load the bases, which seemed like a good thing, but the Demons had the bases loaded in the eighth inning with no one out and didn't score.

'With the bases loaded, we hit it to the one spot that you cannot hit it to,” Obermann said. 'If it was right or left a couple inches, it is into centerfield and we win the game there.”

Sparks stepped to the plate with the bases loaded in the ninth and singled home the winning run.

'It felt pretty good,” she said. 'It look like a drop ball inside, so I took it right out to left field where it needed to go. My few at bats before that one were not great, so I knew I needed to change something. I knew I needed to adjust, so I made the right adjustment. It helps to see the same pitcher because I know what she has. I was ready.”

'We had a senior in Molly coming through in the clutch for us there in the last inning,” Obermann said. 'Kellie had a great slide and the umpire made a great call because her slide was under the tag. The ball beat her there but the tag didn't get her. She popped the ball up and hustled. It shows her character there because it wasn't her best swing, but she still ran hard out of the box. It made such a difference because if she's not at second, then we need a couple of hits to drive her in. Alexa is one of our more clutch performers and came up with two outs and had a huge knock to get us two extra innings.”

Sparks pitched all five innings against Pekin and gave up six hits, one walk and whiffed two.

'Pekin has been playing well,” Obermann said of the Panthers, who started the season 0-5 but are 11-11 now. 'We came out of the gates hitting the ball extremely well. That gave us all we needed and we were able to end it in five. The Pekin pitcher was a little wild and we were able to take advantage of mistakes they made.”

The Demons scored six run in each of the first two innings and received four bases on balls, but Anna Venenga, Linnenkamp and Duwa all had two hits apiece. Kaitlyn Mitchell batted in two runs and Venenga three.

Washington is 17-10 and hosts SEC opponent Keokuk today.

'We had one little incident on a bunt today, but we are doing a lot better defensively,” Obermann said. 'I think we have learned that we cannot beat ourselves if we want to win. There was a play or two that we maybe could've, should've made but didn't, but it wasn't like earlier in the season where we let it snowball into bigger innings. We are shutting that off now and starting to hit our stride defensively. If we can be consistent on the defensive side of things, we are going to be in every game.”

An announcement was made at the tournament that in the ensuing years it would have a name, the Ed Jones Memorial Tournament, in honor of the man known as the No. 1 Demon fan, who was murdered last year.