File Photo by Dennis Mathes, Journal-Courier | For The Telegraph
HARDIN — The Calhoun Warriors flailed away through eight innings without getting a single ball to the outfield grass against Alton hurler Brittany Roady.
With Roady and Grace Baalman locked in a pitchers duel scoreless through 11 innings, Baalman then bypassed the outfield green for the turf beyond the center field fence. Baalman’s two-run walk-off home run with nobody out in the 12th inning gave Calhoun a 2-0 nonconference softball victory over the Redbirds at Calhoun.
The home run was the seventh for Baalman, who hit 19 last season as a sophomore while pitching the Warriors to a Class 1A state championship. Calhoun, the state’s No. 1 ranked team in Class 1A, improves to 19-1. Alton falls to 12-3.
“We always pitch around Grace, we knew she hit a home run off me last year, we knew she was capable of doing it again,” said Roady, who took the loss in last season’s 8-1 defeat to Calhoun. “She’s a powerful girl, a tall girl, you expect those things out of her. But you’ve just to go in there and do the best you can.”
No. 9 hitter Abby Baalman led off the 12th inning by reaching on an error to bring up Grace Baalman, who fouled off the first pitch with Abby Baalman off on a hit-and-run.
“Then I looked for my pitch,” Grace Baalman said of the second offering from Roady. “And, luckily, she threw it high instead of low – that’s where I like it.”
Before Baalman’s towering drive to center, the Warriors had given no hint of getting to Roady. The Alton right-hander had retired the previous 17 Warriors before Abby Baalman’s slow roller back to the circle eluded Roady. The baserunner with nobody out reduced Alton’s options with Grace Baalman and the Kentucky recruit punished the Redbirds.
“We chose to pitch to her,” Alton coach Dan Carter said. “We had the girl on base, but we could have possibly pitched around her. But I wanted to see how our girls react and Brittany pitched a great game, I hate to take the ball out of her hand. … One little mistake and it lost the game. Somebody has to lose and, unfortunately, it was us today.”
Grace Baalman went 3-for-5, but no other Calhoun hitter got a ball out of the infield. Roady struck out 17 and walked no one while allowing five hits.
“She commanded the game,” Calhoun coach Matt Baalman said. “We just couldn’t put the bat on the ball.”
After pitching out of a first inning that began with Warriors on first and second with nobody out, Roady did not allow a runner to reach second base until the 12th.
Meanwhile, the Redbirds were able put the leadoff hitter on base six times against Grace Baalman. But Alton went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position and failed to get a bunt down on 10 of 13 attempts.
“Good pitching, it’s tough to put the ball in play,” Carter said. “Oh-for-10 with runners in scoring position, yeah, that’s a stat, obviously, we want to be better at. But it’s the bunting that frustrates me.”
Grace Baalman, who got her 1,000 career strikeout last week, allowed four hits and four walks while striking out 17. The 6-foot-2 junior lowered her ERA to 0.24 with 238 strikeouts and 16 walks in 117 innings.
Alton’s best chance to break through against Baalman came in the third inning when No. 3 hitter Savannah Fisher, after twice failing to get a bunt down, smoked a line drive to the gap in left-center field to lead off the inning. The speedy Fisher never hesitated rounding second base and cruised into third with a triple when the Calhoun relay went to second.
But Baalman, who fanned three successive Redbirds after Alton put its first two runners on base in the second inning, struck out the Nos. 4-5 hitters in the lineup and had two strikes on No. 6 when Fisher broke for home on a delayed steal while Calhoun catcher Madison Lehr threw the ball back to Baalman.
But Baalman calmly tossed the ball back to Lehr, who tagged out Fisher on a close play at the plate. “We gambled,” Carter said. “It didn’t work. I’d do it again – against this pitching and this team.”
“If that would have happened, Grace would have been in big trouble,” Grace’s father Matt Baalman said with a laugh. “Our catcher and pitcher would really have to fall asleep for that to happen. They’re a lot better than that.”
The defeat was the second in a row for the Redbirds, who lost to Jersey 6-5 on Saturday. Alton plays at East St. Louis on Tuesday before playing host to Cahokia on Wednesday. No matter the outcome of those games, the lessons learned in Hardin figure to be the most beneficial of the week.
“We always know coming in to play Calhoun, they’re going to be tough with Grace, and they used to have Maddie,” said Roady, who was a freshman when the Redbirds were one-hit in a 4-1 loss to Grace’s older sister Maddie Baalman in 2013. “We have to be on our ‘A’ game. But taking away from this, we know that we’re a good team and we know that we can do anything. This win was possible. But it’s OK, we’ll learn from it.”
CALHOUN 2, ALTON 0
Alton 000 000 000 000 — 0 4 1
Calhoun 000 000 000 002 — 2 5 1
Alton (12-3) – Fisher 1-5 3B, Hudson 1-5, Fencel 1-4, Herrin 1-4. LP-Roady IN-11.0 H-5 R-2 ER-1 BB-0 K-17.
Calhoun (19-1) – G. Baalman 3-5 HR RBI-2, Lehr 1-4, A. Baalman 1-4. WP-G. Baalman IN-12.0 H-4 R-0 ER-0 BB-4 K-17.
