WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana — Andrean’s Abbey Bond pumped her fist and bounded out of the circle toward the first-base dugout at Purdue’s Bittinger Stadium.
The junior right-hander had just escaped a jam with the bases loaded and one out in the third inning of the Class 2A state championship game against North Posey on Friday night.
Bond induced a fielder’s choice, with second baseman Aubrey Grasha throwing home to catcher Lanie Doukas for the out. Then Bond recorded a strikeout.
“A little nerves,” she said. “But I never question my pitches. I knew what I could do. I knew I had a good defense behind me. I’m always looking to throw the ball over the plate and let my defense work.”
Bond showed her grit to maintain a scoreless tie to that point, and she and the 59ers held off North Posey for as long as they could before Erin Hoehn hit a walk-off home run with one out in the bottom of the seventh to propel the Vikings to a 3-0 victory.
Hoehn, a Michigan recruit, also pitched a no-hitter with 15 strikeouts, a record for the 2A state finals, and three walks.
“She’s good,” Andrean coach Glenn Eisfelder said. “We haven’t seen a pitcher like that all year. We’ve seen some good pitchers, just not like her.”
Hoehn entered the game with a 19-0 record, a 0.31 ERA, 290 strikeouts and 22 walks in 137 innings. She was batting .481 with 11 homers and 47 RBIs.
“She has a good rise ball,” Bond said. “A lot of us couldn’t lay off of it. Her change-up was really good. She’s going to do great things at Michigan.
“We couldn’t hit her. We were making adjustments, just not enough to get hits.”
Bond, who was 21-3 with a 1.04 ERA, 238 strikeouts and 41 walks in 154 ? innings for the 59ers (29-8), also was difficult to hit. She allowed six hits with eight strikeouts and three walks.
“I was pretty confident going in,” Bond said. “I knew my stuff, and I knew my defense, and I knew I could do it. I was pretty confident going in. It’s awesome being on this kind of stage too.”
North Posey (29-0), ranked No. 1 in the final state coaches poll, opened the seventh with a single up the middle. After a sacrifice bunt and a walk, Hoehn cracked the home run to right-center field on a 3-2 pitch from Bond.
“She always gives you everything she has, win or lose,” Eisfelder said of Bond. “We couldn’t have expected any more from her. We just couldn’t hit the ball.”
Andrean, which was tied at No. 6 in the state coaches poll, finished as a state runner-up for the fourth time. The 59ers last made the state championship game in 2012, winning it all for the third time.
More Top Picks Best Designer Reading Glasses For Women
There are no seniors on the roster.
“It’s OK,” Bond said. “We’re all young. We’ll all just come back in the same position. It’s going to be really big for us. We’ll all get another year of travel and experience under our belts. Then coming back here and playing another year of high school, we’ll have seniors, juniors and sophomores, it’ll be really good.”
Eisfelder was asked how he would have reacted if he had been told before the season that Andrean would be a state runner-up.
“I’d be elated,” he said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re in the top 2% of all the schools in the state. That speaks volumes.
“Next season’s a different time. We have to pick up the pieces and see what happens. There are a lot of good teams in our area.”