By Riley Bean
Hermitage, MO – When Walnut Grove pitcher Raylie Hejna smacked a two-run homer in the first inning to put her team up 3-0 over Hermitage, it looked as though the Lady Tigers were going to have a nice night in Thursday’s Class 1 sectional softball game.
In fact, Walnut Grove led 6-2 in the third inning thanks in part to another big hit from Hejna as she drove in two more runs with a double to the left field wall.
But that would be the last run Walnut Grove could produce for nearly the rest of the game.
Hermitage, meanwhile, was slowly chipping away at the deficit – a solo homerun in the fourth, an RBI single in the fifth, and a two-run single in the sixth – all while stifling the Walnut Grove offense.
Before you knew it, Walnut Grove’s lead had vanished. The Lady Hornets tied the game up 6-6 heading into the seventh inning.
The score remained tied into extra innings. That is, until everything ramped up again in the top of the ninth.
“Walnut Grove is a very good team,” said Hermitage coach Shane Salmon. “They started off hitting the ball well… I knew we could hit, we just had to get a little confidence going.”
Hermitage exploded in the ninth inning and hung five runs on Walnut Grove.
Emily Christian started things off with a double, followed by Sheridan Corum reaching second base on an error. That opened the door for junior Sadi Hostettler to rip a single through the right side, scoring two runs and giving Hermitage their first lead of the game.
“It was just great,” said Hostettler about her go-ahead hit. “There was so much excitement going through my head. I didn’t really have any words.”
But they weren’t done just yet.
Amanda Newman followed that up with a single to score Hostettler. Then the next batter Aleisha Wise smoked a triple to score Newman.
Another Walnut Grove error allowed Wise to reach home base as Hermitage would bat around in the ninth.
“That [inning] was big,” Salmon said. “And I told them, I said, ‘We need to keep scoring,’ because they had the top of their order coming up too in the bottom, so we had to make sure we were up several runs because they could still score runs.”
Even though the game was played in Hermitage, Walnut Grove was the home team on the scoreboard. They made the most of their chance in the bottom half of the ninth.
The senior Hejna went on to hit another two-run shot with two outs in the ninth, her second homer of the game. The third out was recorded in the next at bat, ending the game 11-8 in nine innings.
Hejna finished 4-4 with two home runs, a double, a single, a walk and six RBI at the plate. She also recorded eight strikeouts in the circle for Walnut Grove.
“We couldn’t get the Hejna girl out,” said Salmon. “She hit the ball well, two home runs tonight.”
“Raylie [Hejna] is a champ. She’s such a hard worker, especially this year,” said Walnut Grove coach Jeff Dishman. “The cool thing about Raylie is that her sister graduated four years ago when we were at the Final Four and hit a home run in her last high school at bat. I thought about that when Raylie was rounding the bases. I mean, that’s kind of my kid.”
Hostettler had nearly as good of a day at the plate as Hejna, going 3-5 with a home run and four RBI for Hermitage, including the big two-run single to break the tie in the ninth.
“It says that we’re not quitters,” Hostettler said. “We don’t stop, we just keep going. We just don’t give up. We just keep fighting and we like to prove people wrong, so that’s what we do.”
“We kind of thought that the first team to come out and score early would have a good shot,” said Dishman. “I’ll tell you what, [Hermitage] did such a good job with two strikes, much better than we did. We knew they were a good team… They were better than we were tonight.”
The Lady Hornets (17-8) are heading to the Class 1 quarterfinal round for the first time since 2006. They’ll travel to Van Buren (18-5) on Saturday to face a Lady Bulldogs team that shut out Norwood 11-0 in their sectional matchup.
“I don’t know anything about [Van Buren],” said Salmon. “They must be pretty good because Norwood, the team they beat, is really good and I was a little surprised that Norwood didn’t come out of that one. But I guess Van Buren is pretty good too.”
