Trailing by three runs and with only three outs to work with, the Warrenton Lady Warriors mounted a furious rally in their 3-2 loss in Monday night’s district championship game. 

Warrenton (18-10-1) scored a pair of runs in the seventh inning in their 3-2 loss to Class 4 defending state runner-up Helias Catholic in Monday’s Class 4, District 5 championship game at Jefferson City High School. 

Warrenton’s Makayla Witthaus led off the seventh inning with a hit by pitch. Maddisyn Hoelscher followed with a double to put runners on second and third with no outs and bring the tying run to the plate. Witthaus scored after Adee Morgan’s groundout, which was the second out of the inning. After Caydynce Haverfield extended the inning with a single, Rose Renshaw hit a single through the right side of the infield to score Hoelscher and pull Warrenton within one run. 

“It’s a pretty standard approach across baseball, softball,” Warrenton Head Softball Coach Chad Berrey said. “If you need a lot of runs, you’re taking until you get a strike, make sure the pitcher feels pressure that she has to pitch to you. Once you get a strike, then we’re free to go ahead and start swinging out of our shoes. So, our girls did a great job holding to that. 

After Renshaw’s RBI single. Warrenton leadoff hitter Kiera Daniel stepped up to the plate with the tying run on second and the go-ahead run on first base. Daniel worked the count full before she was called out on a check swing third strike to end Warrenton’s seventh inning rally. 

“I haven’t argued with the umpire in three years. I’m very proud of that,” Berrey said. “And I think that was probably the worst call and the worst timing I’ve ever seen. Kiera Daniel had a great at bat. Fought all the way back to a full count. And as a slapper runs through with the footwork, they call a strike three. So, that put an end to our rally.”

The Lady Warriors started to get traffic on the bases in the fourth inning after failing to reach base in the first three innings. All nine Warrenton batters in the first three innings were retired, including four on strikeouts.

 With Warrenton trailing 3-0 in the fourth inning, Kylie Witthaus’ single and Makayla Witthaus’ double with two outs put runners on second and third. Hoelscher grounded out to second to end the threat. Daniel reached third base in the sixth inning but was stranded on Kylie Witthaus’ lineout to third base. 

“We kept elevating the ball a little bit too much,” Berrey said. “We hit tons of fly balls today, but that’s what you get when you get a rise ball pitcher. We had a couple of good swings to the fence that the air was just a little stale and the ball didn’t travel as well as we liked. So maybe our approach would have been to chop down on it more, but hindsight’s, 2020. I thought we hit her well, it’s just, that’s a great defense over there in Helias.”

Two of Helias’ runs came off of leadoff walks in the second and third innings. The third run of the game came on an error. 

“Two of the runs were leadoff walks,” Berrey said. “Once you walk the leadoff runner, it’s 80% sure they’re going to score. And then we had a couple of booted balls here and there. That’s a very aggressive base running team… So just a couple of errors, miscues there allowed them to put three runs on the board.”

Kylie Witthaus pitched six innings for the Lady Warriors. She struck out 15 Helias batters in the loss. 

A year after placing fourth in Class 4, Warrenton won a pair of district tournament games over Marshall and Jefferson City to advance to the district championship game for the third consecutive season. Warrenton won district titles in each of the past two seasons. 

“Whatever role the seniors played this year, speaks volume on how they were brought up through the program,” Berrey said. “I think those same values are going to be instilled into these juniors and sophomores and freshmen. And I don’t think they will take a step back next year. We’re going to play differently… I think those values, of course, of that great resilience is going to drive us to play a little different way and hopefully if all goes right, in my opinion, we should be back here in about a year.”