Imperfect ending: Tigers spoil Wolves’ shot at sectional title with walk-off victory

GLASFORD, Ill. — An unbelievable performance in an unbelievable game with an unbelievable ending.

And an imperfect ending in the Pleasant Hill softball team’s case.

Wolves senior pitcher McKinley Lowe took a perfect game into the seventh inning of Saturday’s Class 1A Glasford Sectional championship game against Illini Bluffs, the top-seeded team in the sectional and the No. 1-ranked team in the Illinois Coaches Association state poll.

An error with one out ruined Lowe’s bid at perfection and put the winning run on third base. Two batters later, after an intentional walk and a strikeout, Illini Bluffs’ Cora Ellison ripped a two-ball, one-strike pitch into left-center field to drive in Annabelle Fortin with the only run in a walk-off 1-0 victory.

With it, the first sectional title in any sport in Pleasant Hill history slipped away.

“I was going to go out there and leave everything I had out there because I knew there was a chance this was going to be my last time wearing a Pleasant Hill jersey, and it just happened that it was,” Lowe said.

She did all she could to keep that from happening.

Lowe retired the first 19 batters she faced, losing the perfect game when Fortin’s bunt down the third-base line was fielded by Wolves third baseman Kaitlyn Borrowman, but her throw eluded second baseman Maddison Daniels covering first. The ball rolled down the right-field line, allowing Fortin to get to third base.

“When that happened, I knew we were going to win,” Ellison said.

Lowe intentionally walked Lexi Brinkman and struck out Chloe Eeten to bring Ellison to the plate.

“Throughout that at-bat, I was just trying to think, ‘Contact, contact,’” said Ellison, who had struck out and popped out against Lowe in her two previous at-bats. “I was just thinking, ‘Get on top of the ball and just hit it.’”

Pleasant Hill coach Ryan Lowe said they were pitching carefully to Ellison, and while hindsight is 20-20, he wished he would have been even more careful.

“I’m kind of second guessing myself,” Lowe said. “We were trying to throw some balls off the plate and pitch around her. To tell you the truth, I should have just said put her on and dealt with the next batter, but you can coulda-woulda-shoulda yourself all day.”

Wondering what could have been extends to the Wolves’ scoring opportunities.

With two outs in the top of the seventh, Pleasant Hill’s Ava Wombles walked and Borrowman singled, putting the go-ahead run at second with No. 3 hitter Jade Peebles stepping to the plate. Ellison struck out Peebles to end the inning. Those were the eighth and ninth baserunners the Wolves stranded.

“Sometimes you just can’t string hits together, and that’s just the way it was today,” McKinley Lowe said.

Ellison also escaped bases-loaded, one-out trouble in the fifth. She induced a Borrowman flyout that wasn’t deep enough for Emma Henderson to score from third, then struck out Peebles.

Ellison had a scare in the bottom of the fourth as well. Two pitches after McKinley Lowe singled up the middle, Makenna Winchell smoked a line drive right back at Ellison. The ball deflected off Ellison’s glove and straight to Eeten at shortstop. She fielded the ball on one hop, stepped on second and threw out Winchell at first for the double play.

“That almost gave me a heart attack because I almost got hit in the face,” Ellison said.

The Wolves didn’t have as many scares as McKinley Lowe was in control. She struck out 14 while getting four popouts or flyouts and one groundout.

When asked to describe his daughter’s performance, Ryan Lowe simply said, “Unbelievable.”

Unbelievably close to perfect.