May 24, 2001

Golden Bears have just enough offense for victory over Stockaders

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

FINDLAY -- Officially, Gibsonburg sophomore Jamie Wonderly fell short of official perfection when she walked Old Fort's Lacy Spurgeon in the sixth inning.

To heck with semantics, though. She was perfect.

Wonderly allowed just one baserunner, and the Golden Bears had just enough offense to provide the backing for a 2-0 victory over the Stockaders in a Division IV regional semifinal.

Wonderly fanned 13, the highlight coming in the fifth inning when she struck out the side -- all on called third strikes.

"Rise balls. They were going for them," Wonderly said of the Old Fort hitters. "After I threw (rise balls) for a while, I went somewhere else so they wouldn't just stop swinging at the rise balls."

Wonderly established her dominance from the get-go, striking out two in the first inning.

Then, the Golden Bears got the only they needed in the bottom of the first, thanks to some wildness by Old Fort pitcher Erin Rau.

In the 160 innings Rau previously pitched, she walked just 19 batters. But against Gibsonburg she walked three of the game's first four hitters to load the bases with one out.

Rau whiffed Wonderly for the second out, but Angela Ruiz followed with a smash toward third that Breena McCool couldn't come up with, allowing the first run to score.

Rau walked just one more batter the rest of the game, and allowed just two hits, but she struggled with control throughout.

"I don't want to think it was nerves because she's been here three times," said Old Fort coach Ron Rau, father to Erin. "Possibly she just pumped herself up too much. I don't know. She just wasn't on.

"The strike zone was sort of consistent, but that first inning I don't think she was close," he said. "But we almost got out of it."

Instead, the Bears had a cushion to work with, while the Stockaders were nervously battling to merely get a runner on base.

As a result, nearly every Stockader was guilty of swinging at bad pitches.

"We helped her quite a bit," coach Rau said. "We worked on it all week, and I told the girls they had to be ready, but it's easier for me to tell them than actually being in the batter's box doing it. If it were me in the same position I'd have probably done the same thing against a good pitcher like that. She was on tonight so it was going to be tough to score on her anyway. You have to give her credit. She pitched a great game."

Rau came the closest to breaking up the no-hitter when she blooped a ball into short left field in the seventh inning.

But Gibsonburg shortstop Heather Hill, who will attend Tiffin University on a basketball scholarship, made a diving, over-the-shoulder catch to save Wonderly.

Wonderly then got White to fly out to left to end the game.

"Jamie's just incredible; she needed to come through tonight and she did," Gibsonburg coach Erika Foster said. "She had a couple of no-hitters early in the year, a bunch of one-hitters and shutouts, but just recently she's started calling her own pitches, and I think now she really feels in control. And I love it. She knows what pitches to call and what pitches are going to make it happen. I have 110 percent confidence in her right now."

Rau battled out of a jam in the fourth inning. The Bears had runners at second and third with nobody out, but Rau induced Morgan Osborne to pop up to catcher Donnie White, then fanned Kelly Krotzer and ended the inning by getting Heather Hill to ground out to second baseman Whitney Magers.

Gibsonburg, though, pushed across an insurance run in the sixth when Ruiz led off with a single, and came home on Osborne's sacrifice fly.

It was a tough way to go out for Rau, who won 69 games in four years and led the Stockaders (21-7) to three regional tournaments. She finished with a 20-5 record this year.

"It's tough," coach Rau said of coaching his daughter's last high school game. "But it's probably tougher for mom. But she's not done. We'll see her play next year at Tiffin (University), and that'll probably be more relaxing for me.

"It's always tough when you lose seniors," he said. "With Peanut (Frankart), Justene Tarris and Manda Jess, I've coached them from tee-ball all the way up. There comes a time, and the time's here, but it's tough."