EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville's Jordan Garella was on top of her game Tuesday.
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That served the Tigers pretty well, especially once their offense got rolling in the bottom of the fifth inning in their IHSA Class 4A Edwardsville Regional opener against Quincy at the District 7 Complex.
Garella, a junior, conceded just two hits and faced one over the minimum, dismissing the first 12 Blue Devil batters she faced as the Tigers defeated Quincy 11-0 in six innings to advance to regional final against the winner of Wednesday's game between Granite City and Belleville East; the Warrior-Lancer game begins at 4:30 p.m., with the final set for 11 a.m. Saturday.
“She threw pretty well,” said Tiger coach Lori Blade. “She kept the ball down especially; they've got some pretty big hitters, so her location was pretty good. We made some nice plays behind her when they did hit a couple of balls hard, but once we got going offensively, we hit some balls hard and they happened to be in some gaps.
“We battled to get the first two (runs); it was old-school bunt and get the hit, but at this point in time, in the postseason, we'll take them any way we can get them.”
“It was a tough game,” Garella said. “We thought it was going to be a pretty tough game; we hadn't played them in a couple of years and we were just ready to play.”
Garella relied on a number of pitches to keep the Blue Devils off-guard. “I had a combination of pitches,” Garella said, “just keeping them my (pitch) speed different and try to keep them off-balance. My defense made a lot of a lot of really good plays.”
“I thought our pitch selection the last two innings, three innings, was much better; we were a bit anxious the first three innings,” Blade said.
Edwardsville broke on top in the second when Anna Burke singled to open the inning and went to second when Allison Loehr sacrificed; Emma Lewis then drove Burke home with a single, taking second on the throw trying to get Burke at the plate. EHS expanded the lead to 2-0 in the fourth when Lewis singled with one out and was sacrificed to second by Garella; Taryn Brown then chased Burke home with a single and went to third on a Jordan Corby double, but the Tigers could not get another run home.
Then came the fifth, when Rachel Anderson singled to start the inning and Sarah Hangsleben reached base on a fielder's choice that failed to get Anderson. Both Anderson and Hangsleben executed a double steal and Anderson went home on a Burke sacrifice fly to center to expand the lead to 3-0. Loehr singled in Hangsleben to bring up Lewis, who connected on a 1-0 offering by Quincy pitcher Makayla Wand over the fence in left make it 6-0 in Edwardsville's favor.
Brown then stroked a two-out single to keep the inning going and Corby smacked a double deep to center to bring in Brown; Corby was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple, but the run scored before the out was recorded to make it 7-0 through five.
Garella was moving quickly through the Blue Devil lineup, retiring the first 12 batters she faced before giving up a single to Roni Wingerter to begin the fifth; Wingerter was erased on a fielder's choice and Garella struck out Hannah Fuglaar for the second out before Brown picked Kailey Owsley off first to keep Garella at the minimum.
Garella's only other blemish was a two-out single by Kennedy Fleer in the sixth before Anderson got a one-out single in the bottom of the sixth; Hangsleben tripled home Anderson to make it 8-0 in the Tigers' favor, with Burke making it 9-0 on a RBI single before Loehr blasted a pitch over the boards in center for a two-run homer to bring the game to an end.
Garella ended up with three strikeouts on the day, while Corby ended 3-for-4 with a double, Hayli Green 1-for-4, Anderson 3-for-4 with two runs scored, Hangsleben 1-for-4 with a triple, RBI and two runs scored, Burke 2-for-3 with a RBI and two runs scored, Loehr 2-for-3 with a homer, two RBIs and two runs scored, Lewis 3-for-3 with a homer, two RBIs and two runs scored and Brown 2-for-3 with a RBI and run scored. Wand took the loss for Quincy.
Whoever Edwardsville plays next will have already faced the Tigers twice on the Southwestern Conference schedule, with EHS having already won twice. Blade realizes, though, that a third win on the season won't come easily.
“It's tough to beat a team three times,” Blade said. “Either way, we've got to do that; Belleville East, I'm sure, will be wanting another shot at us and Granite (City) has played us pretty closely, so we'll see. Right now, it's about us doing our job and trying to move on, and that's what we did today."
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