WILLIAMSVILLE — Steve Dennis had a smile ear to ear following Williamsville’s 6-1 win over Buffalo Tri-City/Sangamon Valley in the Class 2A Williamsville softball sectional semifinal game on Wednesday.
His team, which can mash the ball, is known for power. But in the Bullets’ four-run top of the fourth inning, they showed they can play small-ball, move runners into scoring position and capitalize.
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Oh, and capitalize they did.
No. 3 Tri-City (23-7) committed three errors, and No. 1 Williamsville (29-7) scored three unearned runs off those miscues to advance to Friday’s sectional championship against No. 1 Rochester (25-8) at Jane Grebner Field. It will be a rematch of Rochester’s 1-0 win over the Bullets on May 4. Rochester pitcher threw an absolute gem in that one with 15 strikeouts and allowed two hits and two walks in the nonconference win.
“We’re ready to go. We’ve seen them before,” Williamsville freshman Hannah Louis said. “We’re going to keep attacking pitches, work at-bats and we’re ready.
“I think we’re good at that, finding a way to make contact, get on base and do something to put pressure on the other team.”
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Williamsville starting pitcher Olivia Heigert led off the top of the second with a single, junior Lucy Nell put down a sacrifice bunt, Mia Gallaher walked and with two outs, Ella Greer singled to the outfield scoring Heigert for a 1-0 lead.
After Heigert allowed her third hit to Tri-City in the bottom of the second, and with two outs and a runner at second, Williamsville coach Steve Dennis made the move to bring in Louis to pitch.
That’s a difficult position for many pitchers, but Louis excelled and struck out Ava Pulliam for the third out.
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“I didn’t know it was going to be that soon,” Louis said of moving from first base to the circle. “I trusted my defense: I knew that if anything happened, they’d have my back. I was just ready to go.”
Louis finished with seven strikeouts and allowed one run on five hits across 5 1/3 innings.
“We did it early in the year, but we haven’t done it in a while,” Dennis said of bringing Louis in with a runner on base. “The thought process is to get Liv (Heigert) through a couple of innings, but you also don’t want to put Hannah in a bad situation where there’s runners on base while she’s trying to get her first hitter under the belt, so we started her at the bottom of the order so she can feel comfortable. She struck the girl out, so it worked out perfect going into the third.”
After Gallaher led off the top of the fourth with a double to center, Bailey Wherley put down a sac bunt, but reached on an error to give the Bullets a 2-0 lead. Greer lofted a ball down the right-field line, and it dropped in for another error before a Kinleigh Peters’ sac bunt put both runners in scoring position. Reese Larson then put Williamsville up 4-0 when she doubled to deep center. Three batters later, Heigert singled to score Larson.
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“That four-run inning was a little different for us because we’re noted for our power team — I think we have 40 home runs on the year, now,” Dennis said. “We bunted three or four times that inning, so we were playing for a run to put pressure on Tri-City and throughout the season, we practice bunting, we practice hitting. It was a little bit different strategy for us for sure.”
The two errors that inning were highly uncharacteristic of the Tornadoes, coach Travis Lingafelter.
“The difference today, I think it was jitters, mostly,” Lingafelter said. “We had a game plan, and you’d see it be executed a couple of times, and then we had a few errors behind (pitcher) Lily (Woodworth). It was just a tough game today.
“We were kind of back on our heels for a couple; we didn’t expect a couple of balls to be hit. It happens, but it was the worst time to have it happen in a sectional game.”
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Dennis has a very young team with no seniors, six juniors, four sophomores and 10 freshmen. Of those 10 freshmen, four were part of the win, including Peters, who homered in the top of the seventh.
“The young players are really close,” Louis said. “We talk to each other, we tell each other there’s no pressure, we do what we need to do and that’s all that matters.”
But practice makes perfect, and though the Bullets don’t pull out the small-game bag from their bag of tricks often, they practice it enough so that in key moments, they’re ready to execute, Dennis said. “
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“We’ve been preaching that all year and I’m really big on practicing that stuff during the season, because you don’t want to bunt runners over when you’re in the postseason,” Dennis said. “During the year, someone may get upset because it’s an RBI situation, but I’m like, ‘Playoffs come around, you’ve got to be able to lay it down against good players.’”
It was the second game in a row Peters has homered, though she wasn’t in the starting lineup.
“She’s found some spots in the batting order lately,” Dennis said of Peters. “Kudos to her.”
A win Friday would give the Bullets their first sectional title since 2018, when Williamsville brought home the Class 2A state trophy. With a roster that could return entirely intact next season, it seems as if Williamsville has a chance for a mini-dynasty. Dennis said trust has been the biggest factor to get everyone on the same page.
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“When the season started, we go to them and say, ‘Just trust us,’” Dennis said. “I’ve been coaching for a long time, I have three coaches on my staff that played college softball as well. There’s going to be failures along the way, they’re going to be bad games along the way — but just trust us and we’re going to put you in good positions to succeed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but just believe.”
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: IHSA softball sectional semifinals | Williamsville tops Tri-City
