Oak Park Captures Title in Marathon

By Troy Murray Staff Writer July 29, 2007

ELGIN -- After a week full of softball, two eight-hour rain delays and play stretching till the wee hours of Saturday morning, it was only fitting to end the American Fastpitch Association 14U national softball tournament with a title game such as the one played Saturday between the Ralston Riot from Omaha, Neb., and the Oak Park Windmills.

Oak Park was looking to make quick work of the Riot after a long day of tournament play on Friday in which the Windmills won four tight, one-run ball games.

After starting the third day of tournament play Friday and finishing it Saturday at 12:30 a.m., the Windmills drove back home and were able to catch only a few hours of sleep before returning to the Elgin Sports Complex at 6:00 a.m. Saturday to complete the tournament.

Oak Park then worked its way through the championship bracket, beating the Lincoln Swingers Gold and Minnesota Sting on the way to facing the Riot at 2 p.m.

Hard to believe, but that's just when the marathon began.

Both starting pitchers -- Karissa Hovinga for the Riot and Leah Bry for the Windmills -- threw two complete games a piece. Hovinga led her team to a 2-0 victory in the first game, throwing seven innings of shutout softball, striking out four and stranding seven runners.

"Our pitcher threw two great games," said Windmills manager Mike Solberg. "She's done it all year, I just don't know what to say about her. Their pitcher threw great, too."

In the second game, both starters looked untouchable until late in the game. When the Riot scored the first run in the ninth inning on an error, the championship looked like it was all but secure for the team from Omaha -- Hovinga had yet to give up a run in 15 consecutive innings.

But that string was about to end.

When Windmills' right fielder Jessica Wilkes came up to bat in the bottom of the ninth with a runner on second and two outs, she was 0-for-6 with four strikeouts.

"I had all the confidence in the world in Jess," said Solberg. "She just looked at me and told me that she could do it -- that was enough for me."

Wilkes lined a shot past a diving Riot second baseman to plate the game-tying run and extend the championship game, which lasted close to three hours.

Bry, who threw nearly 30 innings on Saturday, held the Riot in the top half of the 10th before Ali Brems drove in the winning run on a single past a pulled-in infield to win the title 2-1.

"There was no way we weren't going to win this game," said Windmills' team captain Shannon Cawley, who scored the winning run after leading off the tenth inning with a single and advancing to second on a throwing error. "We never lost hope. We came down from a four run deficit last night, so we stayed confident. We knew we could come from behind again."

While Oak Park celebrated its win, the Riot players stood on the foul line, sobbing in defeat. But with the two games Ralston played on Saturday, Solberg said the Riot shouldn't hang their heads in defeat.

"It was just two great all-around games today," Solberg said. "They gave us all we could handle."

The Windmills' marathon doesn't stop with the national championship. The Oak Park team has little more than 12 hours before heading to Bloomington to play in the Amateur Softball Association's National Tournament.