Bay County's Central Region run draws to a close.
(MyBayCity Photo by John Keuvelaar)

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Bay County All Stars Dream Season Ends

Michigan team loses to Indiana in semi-finals 7-3

July 31, 2015       Leave a Comment
By: John Keuvelaar

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It has been a real roller coaster over the last 24 hours for the Bay County/Michigan All Stars. Tuesday night, the local girls beat Wisconsin to move into the single elimination round of Little League Central Region tournament. Late Wednesday morning, their bats were smoking to build a big lead against Kentucky then they had to hold on to win the quarterfinal match. Finally, undefeated Indiana built a 7-0 lead before the girls rallied falling just short in the bottom of the sixth inning, 7-3. With the loss, the dream of a Central Region title and a trip to the Little League World Series ended.

I caught up with Mgr. Ken Suchodowski following the game. "Fun. Exciting." These were his immediate thoughts of the experience. "When it was finally over, all I could think was "It's Over". As for the impact on the girls: "This helped them measure themselves against kids from another state. My daughter (Haley) commented that this experience will last a lifetime." Ken's final thoughts were "They know what they've done and how far they've gone."

Just before noon, the All Stars took on Kentucky in a quarterfinal match. Bats were booming for the girls from Bay County as they scored in every inning. The first inning they tallied three runs highlighted by an RBI triple by Sierra Anderson. They added two more runs in the second then in the third, Bay County pushed across three more runs aided by an error and a Madison Newton single. They added a single run in each of the final three innings. Bri Woods started for Michigan and pitched the first two innings as Bay County built up a 8-0 lead. Maggie Pitcher took over the mound duties and Kentucky took out their bats. Slowly creeping back into the game, they closed the margin to three by the end of the fifth inning, 10-7. Enter Bri Woods who struck out the first and third hitter to save the win. Later in the day, Michigan faced undefeated Indiana in the semi-final match. Uncharacteristically, Michigan committed three errors to help Indiana build a 3-0 first inning lead. Indiana scored another run in the second inning before Bri Woods took over mound duties shutting Indiana down. They mustered three runs off Woods, one in the fourth and two in the sixth as Woods struck out six batters over 4.2 innings of work. But the real story was the Indiana pitcher, Savannah Baker. She struck out 11 batters and lost her no-hit bid in the sixth inning when Bay County got two hits resulting in three runs.

"(Baker) was terrific. She had a change-up that was just hard to hit even if you knew it was coming," noted Ken Suchodowski.

Indiana faces also undefeated Iowa for the championship Thursday and the trip to Portland, OR. For Bay County, it was a tremendous run of comebacks, big games and determination. Most importantly, it was an experience they will never forget. Great job ladies. You did Bay County proud.

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John Keuvelaar
John Keuvelaar is a college student at Midwest Photography Workshops and Delta College. More from John Keuvelaar

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