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Cascade rolls up North Putnam for regional title
CLAYTON – The third out just wouldn’t come for North Putnam Tuesday night.
All but one of Cascade’s eight runs in the IHSAA Softball Class 2A Regional No. 22 came with two outs on the board as the Cadets ended the Cougars’ season with an 8-0 win.
“That’s been a theme for us this year, really,” North Putnam head coach Kerry Roussey said about struggling to get third outs. “It’s been tough for us in some tight games for some reason. I don’t know why.
“Other teams have been able to get a hit or draw a walk and they end up scoring. It’s tough but it’s something we’ll work on next year, although the only way to work on it is for a ball to hit a mitt.”
North Putnam had a runner in scoring position in the first when Brilye Schmitz reached on an error and stole second but was stranded at the bag as Cascade pitcher Grace Gray collected a third strikeout in the inning.
Megan Walker led off the bottom of the inning with a double and scored on a sac fly by Ava Allen for a 1-0 lead.
Adie Paschal singled home the second run of the night in the second, followed by an RBI double from Lacie Godby that made it 3-0 after two innings.
Macie Pugh added a two-run home run in the third that made it 5-0.
Kyndal Brewer reached base on a walk to start the fourth and reached second on a wild pitch but went no further, though the senior was able to keep the Cadets from adding to their lead in the bottom of the inning.
North Putnam’s best scoring chance came in the fifth when Hailee Daigle beat out a bunt to first, stole second and made it to third on an error but Gray once again got the third out needed to keep the visitors scoreless.
“(Gray) is a good thrower,” Roussey noted. “She’s All-State and (Cascade) is going to have a good shot at winning state with her in the circle.
“We just couldn’t touch her. We tried our short game and should have stuck with it a little more but it’s hard when you have Schmitz, Brewer and Emma Williams coming up in the order.
“You just can’t give up one or two runs an inning,” Roussey added. “Knowing that, we threw everything we had on the table and that was the outcome.”
Cascade loaded the bases to start the bottom half of the inning as Allen doubled, Gray walked and Ruby Gray singled.
A sac fly from Pugh brought in a third run while an errant throw allowed Grace Gray to score to make it 7-0.
The Cadets tacked on one more run when Ruby Gray was hit by a pitch withy the bases loaded in the sixth while the Cougar bats only found a seventh-inning single from Kylie Rust before the curtain closed on the 2023 season.
North Putnam finished the campaign with a 20-10 record, a Putnam County Softball Tournament win and the school’s first sectional title since 2006.
With six seniors leaving, there was plenty of work to be done to fill the gaps in 2024 though Roussey said the squad had the ability to do so.
“We have six outstanding seniors and they set the bar for us,” Roussey said. “Our JV was strong for us this year, beating all our sectional teams.
“We’ve set the bar now. We told all our underclassmen to go out, work their butts off this summer and make this a regular thing. You get a couple of sectionals, you get confidence built up and win a regional and that’s going to be key for our underclassmen.”
North Putnam 000 000 0 — 0 4 1
Cascade 122 021 X — 8 11 2
WP — G. Gray 7 IP, 2 H, BB, 11 K
LP — Brewer 6 IP, 11 H, 8 R (7 ER), 3 BB, 2 K
HR — Pugh
2B — Allen, Walker, Godby
RBI — Pugh (3), Allen, R. Gray, Paschal, Godby