Cathedral shuts down Loyola

Cathedral beats St. Mary's, Mankato Loyola to advance

to section championship

By JEN SEAVEY

Journal Sports Editor

NEW ULM -- Back-to-back doubles, a single, and a whole lot of good pitching and defense was what it took New Ulm Cathedral to shut out Mankato Loyola 2-0 Saturday, after beating Sleepy Eye St. Mary's 10-0 in six innings, and advance to the Section 2A championship game.

In the second inning, the Greyhounds put a run on the board after Shelly Waibel hit a double, then Jessica Stadick came up right behind her and pounded a double into center to score Waibel and earn the sole RBI of the game.

Then, in the fifth inning, designated hitter Katie Gieseke hit a single to get on. Chelsey Beranek, running for Gieseke stole second, then continued on to score when Loyola pitcher Amy Zellmer threw the ball in the dirt past second base.

The Greyhounds feel good getting past Loyola to go on to the championship. Last year, Cathedral lost to the Crusaders in the same game, then lost to them in the championship. This year, the girls had been preparing for the matchup, and expected it to be a good battle.

"It's awesome -- it felt like our whole season has paid off," Stadick said. "Our hard work did it. We worked together; we played as a team."

The Greyhounds had an errorless game, and pitcher Julie Seifert pitched her second complete game of the day, striking out three, giving up five hits, and walking none.

"I told Julie before the game that we wanted a shutout," Cathedral coach Bob Mertz said. "She's ready to throw another [game], she told me."

One thing the team had been concerned about going into the game was Zellmer's pitching. Mertz said that last year, he felt the girls were a little intimidated by her pitching, so this year he took advantage of Cathedral graduate Steph Klaviter's visit to town and had her throw batting practice to the girls yesterday.

Zellmer still struck out nine batters, walked one, and only gave up the three hits, but they were hits the Greyhounds made count. Molly Caron was the lead hitter for Loyola, going 2-3.

"We were pumped, and they thought that they could hit [Zellmer]," Mertz said. "I told them that a lot of times, if there is a good pitcher, there's not always great defense.

"Now, we are in the driver's seat," he said. " We're very confident that we can hit the ball, play good defense, Julie threw the ball well, and we fielded the ball well."

The Greyhounds will face the eventual winner of the loser's bracket at 5 p.m. on Thursday at Caswell Park. If Loyola beats the winner of the Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton and Sleepy Eye St. Mary's game, the Crusaders will need to beat Cathedral twice to advance to the state tournament.

Cathedral 10, St. Mary's 0 (6 inn.)

Sleepy Eye St. Mary's played Cathedral tough through four innings, not allowing Cathedral to put a rally together, although they did allow single runs in the first, second and fourth innings.

Kelly Kuehn had a leadoff single in the bottom of the first, and scored on a Nikki Fischer sacrifice. Waibel lead off the second with a single and two steals before Melissa Kraus' bloop single to center score her.

The Knights threatened in the third when Ashley Reinarts hit a leadoff double and advanced to third, but the Greyhounds got three consecutive outs to strand her. In the fourth, St. Mary's again threatened with Hertling and Sabatino hitting back-to-back singles, but they were stranded at second and third after two ground-outs.

In the bottom of the inning, Seifert's leadoff single led to a Stadick RBI and made it 3-0.

The fifth inning, St. Mary's couldn't hold it up any longer, giving up six hits as Cathedral scored four runs. Stadick hit the ball to the fence for a double that scored three. And in the sixth inning, the Greyhounds put it away with the help of some passed balls and a Liesl Genelin sacrifice.

For St. Mary's, Nikki Hertling was 2-3 with a double, and Sabatino, Ashley Reinarts and Lindsay Beltz each had one hit.

"We needed to play as a team -- to keep together and don't get down on ourselves," Hertling said. "Usually we have our offense or defense going; we just need to get them together."

Leading the hitters for Cathedral were Kelly Kuehn, who was 2-3 with three runs scored, Seifert, who was 2-3 with two runs, Melissa Kraus Who was 2-3 with a run, and Stadick, who had the three-RBI double.

"We hit it really strong, got the bat on the ball and hit it when we needed to," Stadick said.

Sleepy Eye St. Mary's dropped to the losers bracket to face Springfield, beating the Tigers 8-0.