BOSCOBEL — Juda-Albany is headed back to state for the first time since 2017. On Wednesday, June 23, Juda-Albany defeated Iowa-Grant 1-0 in The WIAA Division 4 Boscobel Sectional final.

“Oh my gosh, I am so excited,” junior shortstop Brianna Dahl said. “I’ve never been to state before. In basketball we were close, but then we didn’t. But now we’re going and I am just like, ‘Woo!’ I have a lot of energy. I’m excited.”

She wasn’t the only player in a state of euphoria.

“I can’t believe we’re going to state. Just … wow,” junior center fielder Anna Skoumal said. “I still think I’m in shock. It’s just amazing. We all worked really hard.”

It wasn’t so much the hitting as it was the pitching and defense that won Juda-Albany the game. Freshman pitcher Avary Briggs threw a 3-hit shutout with four Ks — the last of which missing the bat of Lauren Linscheid for the final out of the game. As Myah Johnson squeezed the pitch behind home plate, the dugout, crowd and Brigg’s other defenders went into a fervor.

“Right now I just can’t believe this is happening. I couldn’t have done it without my teammates. It’s just really awesome,” Briggs said.

The program has now reached the state tournament three times (2015 was the first), all of which under the leadership of Bill Davis.

“Just a great team effort and I couldn’t be happier for them. And it was a team effort, not just one person — but everybody did their part,” Davis said.

The program lost in the semifinals in 2015, but won it all in 2017. The oldest players on this team were just coming out of seventh grade that year. There are no seniors on the team this season, and the sophomores and juniors lost their season last spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, when the team was 14-3 and ranked high in the standings, Juda-Albany lost three straight games to close out the regular season.

“Our team was kind of in a slump, and this is the perfect time we brought it together as a team,” Johnson said. “I think it’s how we play as a family — if one of us makes an error, we pick it up and finish the play. We just work together as one big team.”

Dahl said that despite the collective age of the team, everyone in the dugout has the ability to stay focused — and positive. 

“Before the playoffs we had a couple losses, which will happen, but we were able to bounce back really well, which is great and shows a lot about our focus,” Dahl said.

The opening inning of sectional championship went differently than the other seven innings. In the top of the first, Boscobel’s Grace Kite smashed a 2-out double into the plastic snow fence in left field, and Briggs beaned the next batter. Cameron Shores then hit a frozen rope off the barrel to deep center, but Skoumal was able to track it down.

“Anna is a freaking amazing center fielder. She had a crap-ton of grabs out there,” Dahl said of Skoumal. “We have so many talented players out there.”

In the bottom half of the inning, Skoumal led off with a bloop single just over the second baseman’s outstretched glove.

“Not going to lie — when I hit it, I thought they were going to catch it, so I was like ‘ugh!’ I felt pretty good, though. I did my job, and that’s all I can ask of myself,” Skoumal said of setting the table in the opening inning. 

Skoumal then promptly swiped second base and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Ciarrah Davis. Dahl, the team’s No. 3 hitter, grounded to her counterpart at short to drive in the run. 

“(Before the inning), coach Davis said to have a lot of energy and focus, and to play the game that we know we can play — and play it at 100%. We’re a really good team when we can play at 100%,” Dahl said.

No one could have predicted it would be the game’s only score.

“It was defense both ways — we would get runners on and just couldn’t get that one hit to push them across. They had a couple of nice gap shots, but with two outs, and then we just played nice defense. Defensively, we were pretty much flawless, and that was pretty much the difference in the game right there,” Bill Davis said.

Juda-Albany had just one 3-up, 3-down inning offensively, and three other times put a runner in scoring position. Iowa-Grant had less luck, going down in order in four different innings with just a walk, a single and a 2-out triple in the fourth spoiled over the next six frames.

“That’s huge — it’s really big, especially in a 1-0 ball game. When you have all the pressure on you to make a play and then coming through like that, that’s big,” Bill Davis said. “Defensively, I can’t say enough about them — and it was everybody across the board making plays.”

Skoumal was the only Juda-Albany player to reach safely twice in the game. The Panthers had just two hits, a walk and a hit-by-pitch on offense, with two other hitters reaching by error. Juda-Albany also only had one strike out. Briggs meanwhile allowed five base runners total while striking out four. 

Sectional Semifinal, June 21, 2021

Juda-Albany 6, Johnson Creek 5

JOHNSON CREEK — In order to advance to the sectional final, the Panthers had to roll through a gauntlet of teams. It started with private schools Kenosha St. Joseph and top-seeded Racine Lutheran in regionals. A road game at Johnson Creek followed. With a short fence and the wind blowing out, the threat of home runs loomed large.

“We knew coming into the game what Johnson Creek was: They are a great hitting team,” Bill Davis said. “They’ve got 20-some home runs on the year. We knew we were going 

to have to score runs.”

In the top of the second inning, Johnson unleashed on a booming opposite field tater that loudly crashed into the school’s brand new scoreboard in right field, putting Juda-Albany ahead 1-0.

“It felt good getting those hits back. I felt like it just brought our team together and rose our spirits. It just made us more excited to play this game,” Johnson said.

Two innings later, the Panthers’ offense resembled an assembly line, scoring 4 runs in the process — and it started at the bottom of the order.

Emileigh Dallman singled to get the ball rolling, then Skoumal and Ciarrah Davis followed suit with one-baggers of their own. For each single, a runner moved to third and on the next pitch, the Panthers swiped second unchallenged. Dahl had an RBI fielder’s choice, and then Alana Durtschi drove in two more runs in the frame.

“That big inning that we had, Myah got us started and got our offense started,” Bill Davis said of the momentum. “That (inning) was the difference. She (Bluejays pitcher Bella Herman) was working us outside and we were just pushing it to the opposite field, and that was the difference.”

In the bottom of the third, the Bluejays scored two runs on a home run blast to deep left off the bat of Hannah Budig.

In the fourth, Ashlee Walk hit a booming 2-run shot to left to make it 5-4, but Briggs was able to get out of the inning without allowing any more damage.

“I just really focused on hitting my targets after. I knew that I had to hit my targets so that the ball would go in the right spot,” Briggs said. 

In the fifth, however, Herman led off with a triple for Johnson Creek and scored on a Budig single to even it up at 5-5.

Johnson doubled high off the outfield wall in center to lead off the sixth, then came around to score what would become the game-winning run.

The Bluejays didn’t quit, and in the bottom half of the frame made the Panthers sweat. With two outs, Briggs walked a batter to load the bases. Budig stepped to the plate, and swung for the fences. The ball caught the tip of the bat and drove directly into the dirt in front of home plate, like a swinging bunt. Johnson and Briggs both dashed for the ball, with Briggs collecting it. For a fraction of a second she debated throwing to first for an unlikely putout, and instead opted to dash home to beat Walk for a force out on a play at the plate. The bang-bang plate was met with equal groans and cheers as the home plate umpire declared “out!” 

“We had to get that out. I was thinking about going to first and then I heard a bunch of people yell ‘Go home! Go home!’ So I just kicked it in and went home,” Briggs said. 

Johnson Creek still put two runners on in the bottom of the seventh, but Briggs closed it out by inducing a weak grounder back to herself.

Briggs allowed eight hits and two walks, while striking out six. Herman was 3-for-3 with a walk and two runs. Budig reached three times. The rest of the lineup had just three hits and a walk combined. 

“(We made) big plays when it mattered. And then not getting down when you make a mistake. We had a couple of errors, but we picked each other up and came back. They’ve really matured above their age right now,” Bill Davis said of his young roster.

Johnson was the only Panthers player with more than one hit. As a collective whole, Juda-Albany had seven hits, zero walks and 10 strikeouts against Herman, Johnson Creek’s hurler. 

“This pitcher was good — she kept you off balance pretty well — but I’m sure we’ll see some harder throwing,” Bill Davis said. “This is a credit to our conference. People don’t realize how tough our conference was. You had Pecatonica, Barneveld, Argyle, you play Belmont in a crossover, Potosi — you played a lot of games like this, and it gets you ready for this time of year. We’ve been in games like this. We’ve faced pitchers that throw 60 miles an hour.”

What’s next:

Joining Juda-Albany at state will be Phillips, Mishicot and Blair-Taylor. Juda-Albany, as a 4-seed, was the lowest seeded team to advance, despite being ranked eighth in the final Wisconsin Fastpitch Softball Coaches Association rankings of the season. However, Blair-Taylor is ranked No. 1, Mishicot 2, and Phillips 10. The seeds for the state tournament were not released by press time. 

“Realistically we should be a 2- or 3-seed. But we’ll see what happens,” said Bill Davis. He challenged his players for what comes next. “It’s within your grasps, and you don’t know if you’re ever going to make it there again, so go out and give it everything you’ve got — take advantage of the situation.”

[Update: Juda-Albany was seeded fourth and will play No. 1 seed Blair-Taylor at 8 a.m. June 29]

The Panthers went 14-6 so far this season, finishing third in the Six Rivers East behind co-champs Argyle and Barneveld, which lost in its own D5 sectional final June 24.

For Juda-Albany, Dahl is the batting average leader at .382. She also has a double and four triples this season. Johnson is hitting .333 overall and has all three of Juda-Albany’s home runs. Briggs has a .371 average, and Skoumal (.328) has scored 22 runs, most on the team by one over Dahl.

Briggs has a 1.58 ERA in 106.2 innings with 148 strikeouts and 53 walks allowed. Durtschi is her main backup, with a 1.27 ERA in 33.2 innings, with a 28:3 strikeout to walk ratio.

Top-ranked Blair-Taylor is one of just three unbeaten teams remaining in Wisconsin. Blair-Taylor (28-0) was the runaway winner of the Dairyland Conference, and outscoring opponents 349-57. While a lot of BT’s wins were blowouts by 10 runs or more (15), seven were by just a single run — including each of the past three games in wins over Auburndale (16-6), Marathon (11-16) and Horicon (19-7) in the sectional final. 

This is the fourth state appearance for the Wildcats, who brought home silver in 2017 and 2019, and also appeared in the state semifinal in 2018 — each time in Division 5.

Mishicot (22-3) won the Big East Conference with an unblemished mark and has outscored opponents 251-69. Mishicot’s three losses have come from two Division 1 schools (De Pere, West De Pere) and Division 2’s Shawano. Mishicot was 1-1 in 1-run games, and 7-2 in games decided by 4-runs or less. This is Mishicot’s fourth trip to the state tournament (2014, ’16, ’19). The Indians have never walked away champions.

Katelyn Callahan is hitting .542 this season with 4 homer runs, 34 RBIs, 12 steals and 10 walks to just 3 strikeouts. She boasts a 1.496 OPS. In fact, eight Mishicot hitters have an OPS of 1.000 or more, with a another, Ally McArdle, a base away (.996). 

Mishicot hitters have 53 doubles, 14 triples and 13 HRs this season. Staff ace Ashlyn Bennin has gone 16-2 in 89 innings this year with a 2.67 ERA, 120 Ks and 38 BB. She threw a 3-inning no-hitter with eight strikeouts May 4 in a 19-0 win over Cedar Grove-Belgium. Backup Cora Stodola has a 1.83 ERA in 34.1 innings with 34 strikeouts and 15 walks.

Phillips (19-3) has outscored opponents 222-64. During a 10-game winning streak, Phillips had an 8-game stretch of scoring at least 15 runs — and allowed just 6 total runs during that time. The Loggers have been to state just one time — in 2017. 

Four Phillips platers were first-team all-conference selections this year — three of which were unanimous (Jada Eggebrecht, Rachel Callow and Megan DeLeasky). Two other Loggers were second team picks, and another was honorable mention — giving Phillips eight all-conference players in its starting lineup. Pitcher Jada Eggebrecht, a junior, was the league’s player of the year. 

Coming together 

The Panthers combine not just two separate towns, but two schools. Softball is the only sport they co-op in, and the players are rivals in all other sports — like basketball, volleyball and cross country.

“The community is super supportive. Everyone on the team has worked hard. The coaches are amazing. We do our work and everyone does their job. We’re just a big family. That’s the best part,” Skoumal said.

To aid in team bonding and chemistry, the superstitious teenagers carry multiple inside jokes and routines with each other at all times. Every player has eye black that crosses the cheek and turns downwards to their jaw. They also draw a carrot on their right forearms near their elbow.

“Well one, we’re very superstitious,” Dahl said. “‘Carrots’ are just our way of bonding and inside jokes with each other — it helps us bond. It separates us from other teams, too. And our girls all have a great sense of humor, too, which helps us bond better.”

Coach Davis said he planned on taking the team up to Green Bay a day early, to let the players get a chance to absorb the stadium and city a bit — as well as to get something of a decent night’s rest, as the semifinals are played back-to-back at 8 and 10 a.m.

“We’ll go up the night before and look around, try to get used to the atmosphere. It’s just another game, so trying to get that (message) across to them,” Davis said.