That pitch came in the bottom of the fourth inning, after both teams had gone scoreless in a classic pitchers' duel between Beckman's Abbie Fitzgerald and Bellevue's Caley Medinger.
Bellevue shortstop Alesha Ries took the first four throws from Fitzgerald for a 2-2 count before connecting for a right-center field home run and the game's deciding 1-0 tally.
Fitzgerald issued a walk to the next batter, but fanned each of the next three to get out of the inning.
Medinger tallied 12 strikeouts in the game, walking two and giving up three hits to the Blazers. Fitzgerald scattered seven hits, but fanned five and walked only one batter.
"We had a hard time hitting her rise ball," said both Abby Steger and Maddi Vaske, owners of the three Blazer hits. "She reminded me of that pitcher from last year's last game, the 16-inning one," added Steger. "She had a great rise ball too, and we couldn't adjust to it."
"Coach told us to wait for it to get to
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The Blazers stranded several runners in the game. In the second inning, Lauren Fitzgerald drew a walk with two outs. In the fourth, Claire Willenbring waited for a one-out walk, and advanced on Vaske's two-out base hit, but both were left on base.
In the top of the fifth, an error on Medinger put Amie Conrad on, and Steger's base hit kept two Blazers on base with just one out, but they were stranded.
Vaske got her double in the sixth, with two outs on the board and also was left stranded.
Coach Jane Osterhaus added, "This game was exciting in that we were able to get runners onto second and third base. We were really starting to adjust to their rise ball, but ran out of time. Abbie did a good job getting their hitters to pop up or strike out when we needed (outs)."