D1 Softball Final: Safe at Home, Again
June 16, 2012
BATTLE CREEK – The combined numbers put up Mattawan and Hudsonville in Saturday’s Division 1 Final at Bailey Park indicate a game that came down to just one play.
And Eagles junior shortstop Danielle Freeman made it when she slid into home safely to give her team a 2-1 win in 10 innings and the MHSAA championship.
The teams did combine for 19 hits over 19 innings pitched, but only one earned run. At the end, Hudsonville freshman Lexi Agers won out by the slightest of margins over Mattawan senior Stacy Thompson, who had helped her team to the title in 2011.
Agers struck out six and walked only one in 10 innings. Thompson stuck out eight and walked only one as well for the Wildcats, who finished 33-11.
Freeman led off the bottom of the 10th with a single to center field. Junior first baseman Ellie Adams followed with a single to right. Freeman then scored on a throwing error after senior second baseman Bri Elliott had bunted her to third base.
Freeman finished with three hits and Agers had two for Hudsonville, which finished 40-3 and entered the tournament ranked No. 4. Sophomore second baseman Kyla Nickrent had two hits and scored the lone run for Mattawan, which was ranked No. 3. Click for a complete box score.
The championship was Hudsonville’s third in four seasons.
PHOTO: Hudsonville's Josie Hamming slides in safely during the second inning for the Eagles' first run in the Division 2 Final.
Moment: Ewing Swings Dundee Title Hopes
May 11, 2020
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Unionville-Sebewaing was one out away from another chance to score just one run and end the 2013 Division 3 Softball Final.
Over the next many minutes, and in multiple ways, Vanessa Ewing took that opportunity away.
In the top of the ninth inning June 15, 2013, the Dundee senior came to bat with two on and two out – and after teammate Haleigh Kimble had been “semi-intentionally” walked in front of her – and sent a 3-run homer over the left-field fence to break up the scoreless game with the Patriots.
Ewing then returned to the pitching circle and finished her four-hit, 15-strikeout complete game as the Vikings clinched their first MHSAA Finals championship on the softball diamond with a 3-0 win.
“I was just thinking about how they walked Haleigh and how mad that makes me,” Ewing said that day. “That’s really disrespectful. If they’re scared of Haleigh and don’t think I can hit, I have to prove them wrong.”
Ewing went on to play at Northwood.
Click for coverage from Second Half and watch Ewing’s home run below from the NFHS Network.