Deer Valley eeks out win

A bloop hit that fell in front of second baseman Claire Zampini was all that seperated Deer Valley sophomore Lauren Haeger from pitching a perfect game.

Haeger fanned 15 Centennial hitters and allowed just one hit as the Skyhawks advanced to the 5A-II State Tournament semifinals with a 2-0 win Saturday at Sandra Day O'Connor High School.

" I love pitching in these big games," said Haeger. "We tried to switch it up on their hitters today. If we worked one in during the first at bat the next time we'd go away, and that seemed to work."

"This is what you expect when two good teams like this get together in the state tournament," said Deer Valley coach Carl Bakemeier. "You're always going to face good pitching, and that forces you to play for one run and hope get the decision."


The sophomore hurler is pretty accustomed to big games. She also played middle block this year on the Skyhawk volleyball team which reached the 5A-II state finals, where they lost to Centennial. So Haeger transferred that experience into Saturday's game with impressive results. She struck out the side in the second, fifth and sixth innings, and during one stretch fanned eight of nine Centennial hitters.

"Lauren threw very well today," Bakemeier said. "She warmed up quite a bit yesterday in preperation for her start, and I asked her if she was ready, and she smiled and just said, ‘I'm more than ready.'

But Bakemeier said if Haeger had run into trouble he wouldn't have hesitated to use her backup.

"It's also good to know if she has trouble we can go to Jenny (Tyler). They complement each other so well, and get their business done."

Despite both sides scoring more than 400 runs combined during the season (193 for Deer Valley, and 218 for Centennial), Saturday's third round battle was a pitchers duel that forced the Skyhawks and the Coyotes into small ball mode. Skyhawks second baseman Claire Zampini scored both Deer Valley runs.

The Skyhawk junior scored in the seond when she reached on an error that allowed her to move to second, a passed ball got her to third and catcher Morgan Desaulniers drove her in with a single to center field.

Deer Valley added an insurance run in the seventh when Zampini reached base on an infield hit third baseman Desitnee Luna elected to play rather than let the ball go foul. She stole second base and scored when Desaulniers sharp grounder was misplayed.

"Our plan going in was to shorten our swing and take nice, easy hacks to just get base hits," Haeger said. "That's what you have to do against Mo (Montemayor) because she is one of the better pitchers in the division, and defintely throws the hardest."

Montemayor may have been on the losing end, but she had a strong outing. But that was something Bakemeier said he anticipated, so he prepared his team for the junior pitcher's power arm.

"We turned the machine up for a couple of days in practice this week and went into today's game knowing we'd have to shorten our swings," Bakemeier said. "That allowed us to cut our strikeouts way down."

Luciani's base hit was the lone spark for Centennial. She reached first on the bloop single to lead off the fifth inning, and senior Alyssa Gibson was called in as a courtesy runner. With first baseman Jamie Ladd at the plate, Gibson stole second but was stranded to end the lone Coyote threat when Haeger struck out the next three hitters.

"I'm disappointed we didn't come out with the win today, but bottom line you can't take hard swings against a pitcher like Lauren (Haeger) and expect to make contact every time," said Centennial coach Bartt Underwood. "You have to make some adjustments, cut down on your swing and just try to put the ball in play. Just like Gabby did with her hit. I give Lauren a lot of credit, she pitched a great game today, but in the end we didn't execute."

However, Underwood acknowledged the tournament isn't over for his Coyotes.

I told the girls after the game you can be good and mentally tough, but you still have to win the game. Two years ago we were in a similar position as Deer Valley, when a lot of these girls were sophomores, Desert Mountain came back against us and won both games. We just have to go out and give it our all now."

The No. 2 seed Coyotes drop into the elimination bracket where they will face No. 6 Pinnacle, who beat Ironwood Thursday, at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Sandra Day O'Connor High School. No. 3 Deer Valley will play the winner Wednesday at Rose Mofford Park, field No. 4. First pitch will be at 5 p.m.