Central Lee ladies suffer big crooked number

WASHINGTON — Central Lee softball coach Jason Hawk wanted to stay away from a “crooked number,” that inning of three or four runs that can doom a team in the postseason.
The eight runs that Washington put up in the third inning of Saturday’s 10-0 Class 3A Region 5 semifinal win over Central Lee was “a big crooked number,” Hawk said.
The 10th-ranked Demons (28-9) needed just four innings to eliminate Central Lee (22-9) from the postseason and set up Tuesday’s 7 p.m. regional final at No. 4 Davenport Assumption (24-13).
“When we came up here, we were confident knowing we could beat them,” Hawk said. “That one inning just got away from us.”
The Demons sent 12 batters to the plate in that inning, and Hawk went through three pitchers trying to get three outs.
The seed for that inning was planted in the second inning, when Central Lee starting pitcher Jalyn Hawk was called for an illegal pitch for stepping out of the pitching lane marked in front of the rubber.
“She was missing her spots,” Jason Hawk said. “And what happened was is that she was worried about (staying in the pitching lane). They called it on her once, and then she started concentrating on it instead of worrying about the pitches. And then they started hitting her, because she was missing her spots.”
Jalyn Hawk gave up a run in the second inning after the illegal pitch call when Mackenzie Messer’s double down the left-field line scored Lily Magdefrau. Hawk then opened the third inning by surrendering a double to Reagan Miller, a single to Leighton Salazar, and then a two-run single to Ella Greiner.
“That ball was foul,” Jason Hawk said of the second-inning double. “It is what it is, it’s a judgment call. No big deal on that, I’m not going worry about it. We held them to one run and that was it.

“And then in the third inning she kept worrying about the chute, getting out of the chute and everything and, like I said, she wasn't hitting her spots, and they started hitting her a lot harder.”
Hawk brought in eighth grader Hayden Rule to pitch, and Rule could only get one out as the Demons kept adding runs.
“I brought Hayden in, who hasn’t pitched for two weeks, and she was having a hard time hitting her spots and stuff, which is understandable,” Hawk said. “We just had to go through the pain of trying to find somebody who could throw strikes and get them out, and it just didn't happen.”
Elaina Barlow replaced Rule, and got Greiner to ground out to end the inning.
The Demons finished the win in the bottom of the fourth, loading the bases with nobody out. Halle Cuddeback grounded into a fielder’s choice, and Colbie Greiner scored to end the game on the 10-run rule.
Central Lee had just one hit off winning pitcher Bella Salazar, a single by Jalyn Hawk in the second inning. The only other baserunners came in the fourth — Carlee Pezley led off the inning with a walk, then Kenna Sandoval hit into a fielder’s choice and Marie Young’s popout was turned into a double play to end the inning.
“We weren’t making the adjustments that we needed to make,” Jason Hawk said. “I’m not taking anything away from Bella, because, like I said, she's a good pitcher, but she was jamming us inside, and we just didn't make the adjustments and hit the ball out front like we needed to. I think probably out of the 10, 12 batters we had up, I'm going to say nine of them were off the handle, because she jammed us so bad, we just didn't make the adjustments that we needed to.”
It was an emotional end of the season for the Hawks, who won their third consecutive Southeast Iowa Super Conference South Division title.
“I told them we don’t hang our heads on tonight's game,” Hawk said. “You know, that's tough to do, win the conference three years in a row. And like I told the girls, this doesn’t define what we did or accomplished this year, this game. Are they better than us? I don't think so. Tonight, they were. They hit the ball. We didn't hit the ball. They fielded the ball. We didn't.”