Pats to play for state title

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Truman softball coach Amy Temples says her team is equal parts humble and confident.

Thanks to a dominant offense and a dominant pitcher Friday, the Patriots will get to test that theory in Saturday’s Class 4 state championship.

Tishina Bradley and Tori Zorich each drove in four runs and all-state pitcher Paige Parker threw a two-hitter with 14 strikeouts and just one walk and one unearned run as Truman dominated Eureka 8-1 in Friday’s semifinal at Killian Softball Complex.

Now the 30-3 Patriots will try to beat 27-6 Ozark for the third time this season for the softball program’s first state title.

“We’re just going to play our best and approach it like we’ve never played them before,” said Zorich, who went 2-for-3 with four RBIs and two runs scored. “We know they’re going to be out for blood because we beat them both times this season (4-2 and 2-0). That is a good team and we don’t want to get cocky.”

It might not be hard to blame the Patriots if they did. They were in control of 20-1 Eureka from the start.

“We had never seen this team, so I just told our team to play our game, and that worked today,” Temples said. “I knew their pitcher had a 0.18 ERA but we didn’t really know what to expect from them, so we just didn’t change our postseason strategy.”

And what was that?

“It takes three things,” Temples said, “good pitching, few errors and timely hitting. And we did that.”

Zorich and Bradley combined to provide the timely hitting.

Sara Jeffress hit a one-out double in the first. After a walk to Parker and a groundout, Zorich stroked a clutch two-out single on a 2-2 pitch to left field to drive in two. Bradley followed with an RBI double.

“I think that was really big for everyone,” Zorich said of striking early. “It got our confidence up. It felt really good to start like that. I had a smile on my face.”

Bradley was the one smiling in the fifth. After a Parker single and a Brooke VunCannon walk, Zorich hit another two-run single to left. Bradley then broke it wide open by blasting a three-run home run over the fence in right-center field.

“That was my first of the season, and I didn’t even know it got out until I hit second base and saw everyone pouring out of the dugout,” Bradley said. “It was big, especially in a game like this, so it felt good to get one out.”

And backing them up was Parker, who improved to 25-3 with 370 strikeouts this season and lowered her 0.45 earned run average after giving up an unearned garbage run in the seventh.

“With a pitcher like Paige, you don’t worry too much,” Bradley said.

Now the Patriots will try to beat Ozark again, but Temples said it won’t be easy. Zorich said she hopes the team learned from a loss to Oakville in the state finals two years ago when she was a freshman.

“They’re a great team and they’ve got great pitching too, and she’s (Abbie Clanton) more of a strikeout pitcher than we saw today,” Temples said. “We have a lot of respect for their team, but we’re going to just keep doing what we do and hope it’s good enough.”

So far it is.