Maddy Henninger stands at the plate as Valley head coach Daryl Shoemaker watches on during Monday’s sectional opener against Fairfield. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

LAGRANGE – It was the fight the Lady Vikings needed to put up, but Fairfield fought a little tougher.

The Tippecanoe Valley softball team watched its season draw to a close at the hands of the Lady Falcons in the opening game of the 2015 IHSAA Class 3A Softball Sectional at Lakeland High School. In a game in which nobody gave the Lady Vikings a chance, they gave the Falcons everything they could handle before falling 6-2.

Lairen Miller

“I’m very impressed with our girls today,” began Valley head coach Daryl Shoemaker. “Fairfield has a good team and we fought and played the way we’ve been wanting to play all year. We’ve been telling them all year to minimize errors, have good at-bats and get runners on base. When we do that, we can beat teams like Fairfield and our girls did a real good job of trying to do that here today.”

Valley avoided any real costly errors until late in the game. The biggest obstacle for the Lady Vikes early on was getting runners across the plate.

In the first three innings Valley stranded six baserunners, three in scoring position. The biggest missed opportunity came in the top of the third inning when Valley trailed 1-0 and scored no runs after having the bases loaded with one out.

Fairfield made the Lady Vikings pay for that empty-handed frame in the bottom of the third as Julia Brown hit a home run to put her team up 2-0. The freshman outfielder used the whirling wind to her advantage as she lofted a ball that cleared the left field fence by a slim margin. So slim that Brown’s teammates sat in the dugout until she rounded second, it was then that they realized the ball had indeed left the park.

The Valley offense went cold the next two innings but Fairfield managed to pick up some insurance in the fifth. Both Shelby Graber and Alexis Zook scored in the inning for the Falcons, both on errors, to give Fairfield a 4-0 advantage.

Fairfield pitcher Lairen Miller was excellent in the circle for the Falcons as she recorded 10 strikeouts in the game. Miller only struggled in the third, before working her way out of the bases loaded jam, and again in the sixth.

Kassidy Shepherd

The Lady Vikings put pressure on Miller and the Falcons defense in the top of the sixth by pushing across two runs. Valley starting pitcher Kassidy Shepherd reached on an error and picked up an RBI as Amanda Shepherd scored. Kaitlyn Ott scored on a throwing error in the same sequence to give the visiting team its second run of the game.

Miller got some insurance from her teammates in the bottom half of the inning as Mickayla Wallace and Jenean Schwartz both crossed the plate. Miller then went to work led a one-two-three inning to end the game.

Abby Betten led Valley at the plate going 2-2 with a walk. Kassidy Shepherd recorded three strikeouts and surrendered eight hits in the circle.

Valley ends its season with a 4-18 record. Fairfield will advance to play Wawasee (20-5), which received the bye, in the sectional semifinal at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Wawasee eliminated Fairfield (20-6) on its home field in the 2014 sectional semis but it was Fairfield that won the two squad’s only meeting so far this season with a 3-2 victory on April 13.

“We have to have more intensity and I think the girls will bring that,” said Fairfield head coach John Skibbe of his team’s upcoming game. “We have to play better than we did today. The effort, the intensity that we lacked today we have to bring tomorrow.

“We know Wawasee is a great hitting team and, even though they have an injury, they have great pitching. We’ve got to play our best game of the year if we want to win tomorrow and our girls know that.”

DJ Martz (left) shows some appreciation for Julia Brown (right) after Brown hit a lead-off home run in the third inning.