By RICH TORRES
WESTFIELD – When the Fishers Tigers lost by run-rule to rival Hamilton Southeastern last month, they were a team searching for its identity.
Not anymore.
Pitted against No. 12 HSE in the first-round of Class 4A Sectional 8 on Monday night, the Tigers once again fell behind 2-1 early in the rematch, but freshman ace Hannah Mays had other plans and supplied the payback.
Mays blasted a go-ahead three-run home run in the bottom of the third and scattered six hits over seven innings en route to a 4-3 win over the Royals at Westfield High School.
On April 13, the Tigers lost 10-0 in six innings to the Royals (20-7) at HSE, but that was then, and this is the postseason.
“I think our girls played to the level they are capable of today. We were still figuring things out the last time, so I think it worked to our advantage because they didn’t really play us the first time,” Fishers head coach Bridget Langan-Puckett said. “Now, we’re us. We weren’t us then.”
The playoff Tigers were both opportunistic and resilient, and those traits powered them into Tuesday’s semifinals against Noblesville, who run-ruled Westfield 11-1 in five innings to open Sectional 8 on Monday.
Fishers entered the postseason on a three-game losing streak, but Mays halted the skid with one swing, and her timing couldn’t have been better.
Down 2-1 with two outs in the bottom of the third, the Tigers needed a big hit, and with Courtney James on second base and the Royals walking Indiana commit Brooke Benson, a sophomore, intentionally, Mays seized her chance.
“We talked to Mays a lot that she just needs to put the ball in play. When she puts the ball in play, good things happen,” Langan-Puckett said. “Before that at-bat, I told her to put the ball in play, and she did it.”
Mays crushed the first offering she saw from HSE starter Jaylah Guilliam over the left-field fence, flipping the score 4-2 with her fifth home run. She finished 2-for-2 with four RBI.
Benson, who went 2-for-2 with two runs scored, laced a two-out double off the left-field wall in the bottom of the first, which Mays followed up with an RBI-single up the middle to cut the Tigers’ deficit 2-1.
A .418 hitter this season, Benson was issued a free pass to first in the bottom of the third to create a force-out situation on first, second and third bases, but the strategy backfired.
“Do it all night long,” HSE head coach David Cook remarked on the intentional walk. “It’s the right move. We got a pitch up, and they took advantage of that. I told the girls, I wouldn’t change anything. I’d walk her again. Benson is a good player. And they made us pay for it.”
The Royals built a 2-0 lead in the top of the first behind a two-run, two-out single by Nicole Lang to score both Lillian Leiner and Jordan Rager.
HSE later added a run in the top of the fifth off of Ahliza Moore’s second home run of the season, but despite a .357 team batting average, they couldn’t muster more than six hits.
Mays retired seven straight after HSE’s three-hit top of the first, and she sat eight consecutive down after Moore’s solo shot out of left-center field.
“She feeds on her team’s energy, and she feeds on at-bats. She’s really great at that,” Langan-Puckett said. “When she feels it, she goes with it.”
Mays struck out two without a walk to earn her ninth win.
Guilliam, who dropped to 13-5, posted three strikeouts, issued two walks and hit two batters while surrendering four hits through six innings.
The sophomore ace responded after each setback, retiring five in a row after Mays’ run-scoring hit in the first and four more after her home run.
The right-hander left three Tigers stranded in the bottom of the fifth as Fishers loaded the bases twice. Guilliam induced a popup in foul territory for the second out and struck out Jade Frye, a .375 hitter, to end the threat.
“I thought we could take that momentum, getting out of that mess, and we didn’t take advantage,” Cook said. “We only had six hits, and we’re a pretty good hitting team up and down the lineup. We got a little impatient. It wasn’t our night. It wasn’t the way we wanted it to end.”
The Royals won the Hoosier Crossroads Conference title outright this year with a perfect 6-0 record. Fishers was fifth in the final HCC standings.
“This is a really great group of athletes, who has learned to work together,” Langan-Puckett said. “I’m even more excited for Noblesville. They were our first conference game of the season and we got rocked. That game was not pretty, but just like HSE, the team that played them back then is not the team we have on the field right now. I think it’s going to be a brand new game.”
Fishers 4, Southeastern 3
Fishers AB R H RBI
Courtney James 2 1 0 0
Diane Abbott 3 0 0 0
Brooke Benson 2 2 2 0
Hannah Mays 2 1 2 4
*Madeline Wellington 0 0 0 0
Caroline Bernhardt 2 0 0 0
Jade Frye 3 0 0 0
Olivia Latimer 3 0 0 0
Sydney Milburn 3 0 0 0
Kristina Gordon 3 0 0 0
Totals 23 4 4 4
Score by innings
Southeastern 200 010 0 – 3 6 1
Fishers 103 000 x – 4 4 0
HR: Mays. 2B: Benson. SB: Benson, James. HBP: James, Bernhardt.
Fishers pitching IP R ER H
Mays 7.0 3 3 6
Strikeouts: Mays 2.
Southeastern AB R H RBI
Abby Taylor 2 1 1 0
Lillian Leiner 3 0 1 1
Jordan Rager 0 0 0 0
Libby Ratliff 3 1 1 0
Nicole Lang 2 0 1 1
Kaelin Wincek 3 0 0 0
Abbey Willmann 3 0 0 0
*Ava Aguilar 3 0 0 0
Ahliza Moore 3 0 1 0
Nicole Dillow 2 0 0 0
Totals 27 3 6 3
HR: Moore, HBP: none.
Southeastern pitching IP R ER H
Jaylah Guilliam 6.0 4 4 4
Strikeouts: Guilliam 3. Walks: Guilliam 2.
Fishers’ Hannah Mays (10) heads home to her cheering teammates after hitting a three-run home run during the Tigers’ sectional first round game with Hamilton Southeastern on Monday. Fishers won 4-3. (Andy Duvall)