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She swung and sent one high and deep.
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Cotter's Laura Erickson slides safely into second base knocking the ball from Caledonia/Spring Grove's short stop Libby Augedahl Saturday during Sub-Section East playoff game in Saint Charles. (photo by Katie Derus/Winona Daily News) |
Junior center fielder Libby Augedahl backpeddled until she was at the fence. She reached as high as she could, came up with the ball and tumbled over the fence.
Laying on the ground, Augedahl put up her glove with a lime green softball inside it.
The umpires convened to talk whether or not she actually made the catch, or if momentum took her over the fence, which would have been a home run.
It wasn’t. The umps ruled it a catch, and the Spring Grove/Caledonia High School softball team had new life.
It used the momentum to score two runs in the top of the ninth on a two-run single by Aly Meyer.
“The dugout was tense,” Gilbertson said of Cotter getting down two. “You could just feel it. Every strike was dead silence. Every hit and we were screaming. We were nervous on every pitch.”
It looked as though the Ramblers would be sent to the loser’s bracket of the Sub-Section 1AA East tournament.
Cotter, however, didn’t go out like that. Not a team that’s been to state seven years in a row and nine times out of the last 10 years.
As fate would have it, Gilbertson was up again looking to end it. This time the senior did.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Gilbertson nailed a grounder up the third-base line.
The ball rolled just over the bag, just under the glove of Sarah Wold and into right field for the RBI single.
Game over. Cotter won 8-7 and heads into a finals matchup with host and top-seeded St. Charles at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, while SG/C will play La Crescent on the opposite field.
“Honestly, I can’t remember a better comeback in my 17 years as coach,” Cotter coach Pat Bowlin said.
The ninth-inning rally wasn’t the only comeback Cotter had to make.
The Ramblers were down 5-3 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning after SG/C scored four runs on an RBI single from Maria Betz, a two-run double from Wold and an RBI triple from Amber Ideker — the sixth, eighth and ninth batters in the order.
Cotter (16-4) answered right back with two to tie it on an RBI double from Gilbertson and an RBI single by Erica Hengel.
Cotter was also down 1-0 after Libby Augedahl nailed a home run to center field in the first inning.
There were too many plays to count, on both side of the ball, that ultimately determined the outcome.
To name a few: Cotter’s Anna Buege led off the sixth with a double and scored. She also came up with a two-run, two-out single to right field in the ninth — two batters before Gilbertson’s game-winner.
SG/C’s Jenna Schmitz threw out Laura Erickson at the plate from center field in the first inning.
Chelsea Cierzan got Cotter out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the ninth inning catching a Betz line drive for one, and stepping on third base for the second out.
Lauren Bowlin pitched eight innings, striking out eight and walking none for the Ramblers.
Cassie Gran pitched 8 2/3 innings, striking out eight and walking six for SG/C (16-4). Five of the eight runs scored were earned.
