EAST PEORIA — All Beecher had to do to win its first state championship in a decade Saturday night was to conquer an opponent which:
* Boasted four Division I recruits, three of which are still underclassmen.
* Featured a batting order averaging better than nine runs a game.
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* Had the winningest coach in state history in its dugout.
Given all that, the strategy?
“Just breathe,” Beecher clean-up hitter Jessica Lee said. “It’s do-or-die because it’s a championship game, but you just try to focus in the moment. Win or lose, we were going to do it as a team.”
Did they ever.
Behind the two-hit pitching of Kayla Hon and Lee’s clutch game-winning hit in the bottom of the sixth inning, the Bobcats rallied for a 2-1 victory over St. Joseph-Ogden in the Class 2A title game at Eastside Centre.
It was the third championship in five state appearances for Beecher (31-7), which also won in 2004 and 2007.
St. Joseph-Ogden (34-5) was clinging to a 1-0 lead when Beecher got to Spartans pitcher Tori Witruk (16-2).
Kate Landis slapped a leadoff single to left and was sacrificed to second by her sister Margaret. No. 3 hitter and Wisconsin recruit Taylor Johnson — a .476 hitter — then walked on four pitches.
“No way was I going to let her (Johnson) beat me in that situation,” said St. Joseph-Ogden coach Randy Wolken, who has 1,013 wins over 38 seasons. “I know that’s the winning run to all those second-guessers out there. But with all due respect to the rest of their lineup, I didn’t want to give her that chance.”
Instead, Lee became an instant hero, slicing a shot into the left-field corner. And, when SJ-O outfielder Allie Place didn’t come up with the ball cleanly, Johnson scored from first standing up with the game-winning run.
“I wasn’t stopping,” Johnson said. “Even if he (coach Kevin Hayhurst) held me up, I still probably wasn’t stopping because the adrenaline was really flowing.”
“She was coming all the way,” Hayhurst agreed. “The way the spin of the ball off the left-hander’s bat and the position of the fielder … it would have taken two good throws to get her.”
That was enough for Hon (17-3), who quickly retired the Spartans in order in the seventh to get the party started.
With a wicked riseball, the sophomore right-hander retired the first 10 SJ-O hitters and allowed only four baserunners, striking out seven and walking two.
“I was just trying to keep them off stride,” Hon said. “Just fastballs and riseballs.”
“That’s a girl that really grew up in the last month,” Hayhurst said of Hon. “She gets better and better, and I think the warmer weather really helps with the movement on her ball.”
No. 7 hitter Katelyn Burch had given SJ-O a 1-0 lead with a solo home run in the fifth, one pitch after Beecher centerfieler Margaret Landis robbed Logan Frerichs with a spectacular diving catch.
“That play was huge,” Wolken said. “That ball drops, and the home run makes it a 2-0 game instead of a 1-0 game. And you pitch a whole lot differently? if it’s 2-0 instead of 1-0.”
Jim Haas is a freelance writer for the Daily Southtown.